


Hunter and the Hunted - Book 1: Origins

by iclethea, KateBC



Series: Hunted!Verse [1]
Category: Supernatural, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Adoption, Character Death, Drama, Gen, Growing Up, Pre-Twilight, Season/Series 01, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-01-02 22:11:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 52,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1062220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iclethea/pseuds/iclethea, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KateBC/pseuds/KateBC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After 13 years of separation, a family joins back together to fight the forces of evil and uncovers a dark secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Where it All Started

**Origins: Book one**

**The Hunter and the Hunted series**

**Prologue: Where it All Started**

**November 2nd 1983**

She still had nightmares about that night, that night when her parents died.

“Take your brother and sister and get out of here!” The father yelled over the snapping of the supports in the ceiling.

Sixty percent of the house had already been claimed by the out of control fire that had started in the twin’s bed room.

“What about you Daddy!” he yelled.

“I’m going to get your mother!” And then he raced up the stairs. “Go!”

The boy ran out of the house and stood on the front lawn watching the flames and waiting for his dad to come out.

“Don’t worry guys, Dad’s gonna bring mom out and we’ll all be ok.” Seconds later his dad was running out of the house.

Alone.

Siren’s wailed, the ambulances and fire trucks came, police were on the scene and John Winchester was sitting on the hood of his 1967 Chevy Impala answering questions and clinging to his 6 month old baby boy. Dean sat beside him, gingerly holding his baby sister.

After the house was put out and the ‘excitement’ died down the four Winchesters disappeared from Lawrence, Kansas, off the grid. John turned to the only friend he could turn to.

“What are you going to do now John, I hope nothin’ stupid.” Bobby grimaced as he turned on the microwave.

“I don’t know Bobby.” John sighed. The long trip from Kansas to South Dakota had taken its toll, or maybe it was due to the fact that his whole life had been turned upside down. “I don’t know what happened.”

Without turning to face John Bobby asked, “What did you see? When you went back to get Mary, what did you see?”

“I-” John swallowed. “You won’t believe me, the cops didn’t. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes Bobby, I wouldn’t believe it myself.”

“Try me.”

After he explained what he had seen Bobby opened John’s eyes to the world around him.

“A demon? You really want me to believe a demon killed Mary?” John asked incredulously.

“Whether you believe me or not it’s the truth.” Bobby slid him a book. “Chapter 34, page 98.”

John touched the book cautiously. “How do you know all of this?”

“We can talk about it later.” Bobby replied as the microwave shut off. “Now, if you don’t get food in those kids bellies they’ll never shut up and I would like to get some shut eye if you don’t mind.” He handed John two bottles full of grey looking baby formula, both of which he had picked up at the gas station up the street.

“That’s it Dean, be careful of his head.” John worried over his four year old son trying to feed his younger brother his bottle. John wasn’t paying attention to how he was feeding his daughter.

“Watch your own handle on your own baby John.” Bobby rolled his eyes. “A baby isn’t like a cat, if you drop her she won’t land on her feet.”

“Oh, sorry.” John went back to her; staring at her he could see Mary clear as day. The day’s events finally caught up with him.

“What’s wrong Daddy?” Dean looked up to see tears welling up in John’s eyes.

“It’s nothin’ son, I’m fine.” John was trying to convince himself as well as his son.

After the two men put the kids to bed they went back downstairs to talk.

“Bobby, how can I raise them all?” John sighed rubbing his tired bloodshot eyes. “Dean was bad enough even with Mary’s help. How can I raise a four year old _and_ twins on top of that?”

“You’ll have to find a way John. But if it’s one thing that I have learned over the years, family only drags you down. That’s why most hunters are, lone wolves.” Bobby slid him a shot glass and poured whiskey into it. “Do you have any family that could take ‘em?”

John accepted the shot and swallowed it in one gulp. “I don’t know I’m pretty sure that Mary has a few relatives spaced out here and there, I wouldn’t trust anyone in my family to take care of them. I think the closest one of Mary’s family lives in Washington State. He’s a sheriff in some small town there.”

“Maybe you should see if he’ll take ‘em then.”

“Bobby you know Dean wouldn’t stay with him. He lost his mother by force and wouldn’t to lose his father by choice. The twins on the other hand, they won’t remember Dean, Mary, me or any of this. It would probably be in their best interests to grow up away from all of this.”

“You would saddle two kids on an unmarried bachelor?” Bobby laughed. “Did you see yourself tonight?”

“Well what do you want me to do?” John snapped. “I’m sure I could manage not to screw up Sam’s life too bad but what about her? I don’t know the first thing about raising a girl!”

“I’m not telling you what to do John, that way when you screw it up you can’t blame me for it. All I can tell you to do is go to Washington and talk to the guy.”

John looked at Bobby curiously. “You wouldn’t…” He trailed off.

“No way in Hell.” Bobby grimaced. “I’m too old to play ‘Daddy Daycare’.”

The next day John took his kids to Washington, only to return 13 years later.

To bring Isabella back home from Forks.


	2. How It Began

**Chapter 1: How it Began**

I woke with a startle coming back from my nightmare. I had the same nightmare so many times over the past thirteen years that it was normal. But it never got any easier either. It was always the same dream the same two people every single time. I asked Charlie about it the first time it happened, I think I was five years old, he explained what happened to my parents and that the nightmare was probably related to the trauma of losing them. But how could you explain the little boy that was carrying me, and the other baby that the man was holding? What about the man that carried me to Charlie’s house, who was he? There were just too many questions that Charlie didn’t have the answers to.

I quickly got dressed, shaking off my nightmare, and headed down the stairs into the kitchen. Charlie was still up in his room snoring loudly, I rolled my eyes as I pulled down two bowls and retrieved two spoons from the drawer.

This is the way my mornings had been for a few years; Charlie had never been the same since Renee left us. He was still the same old Charlie that I know and love but he wasn’t the best caregiver a girl could ask for, but he _is_ my blood.

When my parent’s died in the house fire when I was only six months old, I was sent to live with him, my second cousin. He was a 20 something bachelor who was asked to take care of his orphaned cousin so he married Renee shortly after he got me so that I could have a mother. She was really nice, I never heard her say a mean thing about anyone, she and Charlie got on real well, but it didn’t last.

She was too much of a free spirit to stay in Forks, she tried to convince Charlie to come with her that way we could still be a family, but something in Charlie made him refuse her offer. I’ve often wondered why he stayed in this town. Like Renee, I wanted to see the world, Forks was a small boring town where nothing happened. The most exciting thing that has happened at that police station is that Mrs. Wilkinson’s cat got stuck in a tree. We made Mayberry look like New York City.

Charlie and Renee got divorced a few years later.

So now I get up every morning and fix us breakfast and he’ll get ready for work and I’ll get ready for school.

“Charlie?” I opened the door to his room. “Charlie, it’s time to get up, you’re going to be late for work.”

“Huh?” I heard him muffle through the pillow. “Oh, hey Bells, I’m comin’.”

He came down the stairs a few minutes later, dressed in his uniform and sat across from me. Just like we always do.

We ate in silence for a few minutes.

“I tell you Bella, it will be so much easier on me when you can drive yourself around.”

I smiled. “I could already if you would let me.”

“Hey, watch who you’re talking too little lady,” He pulled his coat back to expose his badge. “I’m still the sheriff in these parts.”

We laughed as we finished eating then we got on the road to Forks Middle School.

While we were waiting in the drop off lane, I noticed a sleek looking black car that looked like it belonged in one of Charlie’s old 1960’s movies. The Kansas license plate read BQN 9R3, two boys were getting out of the passenger side of the car and an older man getting out of the driver’s side. One of the boys looked to be my age and the other was a few years older. The man looked about Charlie’s age maybe older, and had dark brown hair and a beard/mustache combo to match. The boy that looked my age was kind of mousey and had dark brown hair like his father and was almost a head shorter than his brother. The older boy had on a brown leather jacket and had a ‘ladies love me’ grin on his face. I could tell from here that he was probably a real jerk. Charlie noticed them too, and he looked worried.

“Hey Bella, do you mind if I drop you off here?” He asked me not taking his eyes off of them.

“Sure Charlie.” I got out of the police cruiser and walked to the school and soon forgot about the boys until I went to my first period class.

“Class, this is our new student Samuel Winchester.” The teacher introduced the boy who seemed very shy. “He’ll be staying with us for a few weeks while his dad is on a business trip.”

Winchester? Huh, what a funny coincidence, we had the same last name. I had gone back to my original last name before I started Middle school. It’s kind of a long story and I don’t really like talking about it. Not that I didn’t like being a Swan, I just figured that I needed to stop pretending to be something that I’m not.

“I prefer Sam actually.” The boy rubbed his arm self-consciously.

“Ok Sam, well I’ll put you beside Isabella, I mean Bella, for the time being.” The teacher pointed to me and I raised my hand so he could see me. That’s funny we both go by shorter versions of our names.

As he was walking down the aisle to his chair one of the other boys stuck their foot out so that Sam would trip over it. Sam’s books hit the floor and he landed on them a few seconds later. All the kids started laughing at him except me. I went over to help him pick up his stuff and help him up.

“Here you go.” I smiled as I handed him his things. I noticed that his hair was almost the same exact shade as mine.

“I don’t need help from a girl.” Sam mumbled as he jerked the books out of my hand.

His words stung a little but I could relate. It was hard to be the new kid, or just be different from the masses. I still got strange looks from them being the sheriff’s daughter.

The next time that I saw him was at lunch time, he was sitting alone at a table. I felt bad for him. No one else paid him any attention; I could see a lot of me in him. The shy girl that would always sit alone, everyone stared at her, wondering what sort of freak family she came from.

“Can I sit down?” I asked him as I came near the table. I tried to shake away the negative thoughts as I tried to remember how to smile.

He looked up in surprise. “Sure, I guess so.”

We ate in silence, sizing each other up. I was the first to break the silence.

“I’m sorry about James Newton earlier, he’s a big jerk.” I smirked a little.

“It’s okay, it happens all the time.”

“So you’re new here huh?”

“Yeah.”

“I saw you this morning getting out with your brother and Dad, was your mom at work?”

His fork dropped and he stopped chewing. “My mom died when I was a baby.” He whispered.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” I immediately felt guilty for even bringing it up. It was weird being on the other side of this awkward moment.

“It’s ok, I don’t really remember her.” Sam looked up and smiled a little. His lips turned up a little in the corners like Charlie accused me of doing all the time.

I looked down at my plate. “My mom died when I was a baby too, so did my dad. I live with my mom’s cousin. He was the closest family member that the court could find.”

“Wow, what happened to them?”

“They died in a house fire.”

I noticed that Sam’s eyes tightened when I said that.

“Are you ok Sam?” I asked cautiously.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He smiled lightly, “When is your birthday, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“May 2nd, tomorrow, why do you ask?”

“That’s mine too.” He smiled.

I laughed. “It’s almost like were twins.” It was a good idea. We look similar, same hair color but different eye color, a difference in height, but the same facial expressions. Maybe it was more farfetched than I had realized. But who didn’t want to have a twin after watching _Parent Trap_? Though I was thinking my twin would be a girl….

He laughed along with me. There was a strange tone to his voice. The bell rang and student’s started filing out.

“What’s your next class?” I asked him as we started collecting our things.

“I think English?” He rummaged through his bag and found his schedule. “Yeah English with Mr. Hurdy.”

“Me too! We can go together.”

“Okay.” He gathered his things and we walked out together.

Twenty minutes into Mr. Hurdy’s lecture there was a knock on the door. My seat was close to the door so I turned to see who it was. It was Sam’s dad. He looked straight at me like he knew me. I tried to look away and turn back around but it he looked so much like the man from my dream, it was almost uncanny. I could see in his brown eyes a mixture of joy, sadness, and relief.

“Come in.” Mr. Hurdy waved his hand for Mr. Winchester to come in.

Mr. Winchester opened the door and was still looking at me. “Sorry for interrupting but I need to speak to my son, Sam.” He finally turned to find Sam, sitting near the front. Sam noticed his father’s stare and walked down the aisle to meet his father. “This will only take a second.” They both walked out the door and it didn’t shut the door all the way.

If I leaned back a little I could just barely make out what they were saying.

“You left your knife in the car this morning.” I heard his dad say.

“You interrupted my class to tell me that?” Sam sighed. I could tell from his tone that this happened a lot with his dad.

“Well, you never know when you’ll need it.”

“Dad I don’t think there’s a monster here.”

Monsters? Who in the heck is this kid?

“Keep your voice down Sam.” He paused “Ok, I really came here to tell you that I’m not going to be able to pick you up today. Dean is coming to get you; I’ve given him the impala to drive so you can go back to the motel. Make sure that you two lock the doors and windows.” He paused for a few seconds, “And make sure you salt them too.”

“Yeah Dad, we will, we always do.”

“Do you know anything about that girl that’s sitting towards the back?” I heard his dad whisper a few seconds later.

“Not much why?” Sam neglected to mention the stuff we talked about at lunch. “Do you know her?”

“Keep tabs on her will you Sammy?” he completely ignored Sam’s question.

“Why?” Sam asked.

“Because…” he hesitated. “Because I asked you to, that’s why.”

Sam sighed and said. “Yes sir.”

I heard them coming back so I straightened back up in my chair and turned back to face the rest of the class.

“See you later kid.” John told Sam ruffling his hair. His dad threw one last longing look at me before shutting the door, staring at me one more time, and then walked down the hall. Sam didn’t pay much attention the rest of the class. He stared out the window wistfully. When class was over he walked straight out without looking at me.

I didn’t have another class with him but I did see him after school. I walked over to him but didn’t mention him waiting on his brother, didn’t want him to know I was eavesdropping.

“Oh, hey Bella.” Sam smiled at me.

“Hey Sam.” I grinned back. “What did your dad want?”

“Oh, I left my key to the motel room in the car this morning. He was bringing it to me.”

“Huh.” He lied to me. Maybe he thinks I would turn him in for having a weapon on school campus. “Well do you mind if we wait on our rides together?”

“Sure, my brother should be here soon.” Well he did tell me the truth on that one. Maybe I was blowing this out of proportion. That is what teenagers are supposed to do according to Charlie’s parenting book at home.

We sat on the curb together.

“So what does your dad do?” I asked trying to sound nonchalant.

“He’s a traveling salesmen. He decided to enroll us in school because he is working in Seattle for a few weeks.” He replied, sensing my next question.

“Oh.” Why would a traveling salesmen’s son have a knife? And what about that monster comment earlier? It’s highly possible that I misunderstood them earlier but what else do you need a knife for?

“What does your cousin do?” Sam broke through my internal drama.

“He’s the sheriff around here, though not much happens, there is the occasional cat-stuck-in-the-tree scenarios. But that’s pretty much it.”

Sam laughed, but then he got quiet. He asked me a question so softly that I almost didn’t catch it. “Do you remember anything about when your parents died?”

I sat in silence for a few minutes. Should I tell him about the nightmares? I mean he’s practically a stranger. Charlie would probably blow a gasket if he knew I was talking with a strange kid and a boy at that. But I felt like me and Sam were kindred spirits. He had lost his mother so had I. We had this bond already established.

I sighed and began talking. “I don’t remember a lot, I was only 6 months old. But I do have these… nightmares about it.”

“Nightmares?” He questioned, leaning closer to me and his face becoming concerned.

“Yeah, I sometimes have nightmares about the night they died. Charlie, my cousin, thinks that it’s my subconscious’ way of dealing with the accident. I don’t know…” I trailed off, letting my hair cover my eyes so that he couldn’t see my face. It was embarrassing. I shouldn’t have told him all that stuff, he probably thinks I’m some crazy emo freak now. I peeked through my hair to see if he was repulsed yet but he was sitting calmly on the curb beside me. I looked into his eyes and saw no judgment there.

“I don’t have any memories of my mom, so I wasn’t affected as much as my brother was. He was four years old when she died. We get into arguments sometimes because I don’t understand why he’s upset or why he sometimes wants to be alone.” He smiled down at me understanding exactly what I was going through.

“Hey Romeo!” We jumped as Sam was called out by his older brother.

“Speak of the devil and he shall appear.” I whispered, giggling, Sam didn’t join me. My laughter died down as we stood up and went over to his car.

“So… who’s your friend?” His brother wagged his eyebrows at me, yes, my first instinct was correct, he was a jerk.

“Dean this is Bella, Bella this is my brother Dean.” Sam sighed.

“It’s nice to meet you Dean. Sam has been telling me all about you.” I winked at Sam.

“Oh really, all the nice things I hope.” Dean replied, grinning at Sam. “Come on kiddo, it’s time to go.”

“Bella, where’s your cousin?” Sam didn’t want to leave me here by myself that was so sweet. Or maybe he was following his dad’s request earlier.

I looked down at my watch, it was 4:15 “I don’t know, he’s usually here by now, I guess he’s having to stay late at the office.”

“I hope he’s not rescuing a cat.” Sam laughed.

Dean watched us with a preoccupied expression, out of the corner of my eyes I could see that it looked like he was thinking really hard about something.

“Hey, what if we give you a lift home?” Sam suggested.

“Oh I couldn’t ask you to do that. I’m fine with walking.” _Shut up you idiot, you live on the other side of town!_ I mentally slapped myself.

“It’s ok Bella, Dean would be happy to escort you, right Dean?”

“Huh?” Dean’s voice sounded distracted, like he’d been pulled away from his train of thought. “Oh yeah, sure kid, just give me directions and I can get you anywhere you want to go.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, picking up my stuff.

“Yeah, hop in.” Dean smiled at me.

We speed off towards my house, not knowing what was waiting for us there.

 

 


	3. Lying to Myself

**Chapter 2: Lying to Myself**

**John’s POV**

_I can’t believe the kid left his pocket knife in my car._ I mused as I started walking into the parking lot of the middle school. I knew already that he would put up some kind of fit over it, the good student that he is. I was so happy to see that he actually likes school. Dean, on the other hand, was a totally different story. He absolutely hated me for enrolling him in Forks High.

Even though I could see Dean going into ‘the family business’, I wanted the boys to see a different side of life other than hunting. I wanted them to have a better education than I ever got.

My dad left us when I was really young, maybe four or five? So my mom raised me with a little help from my uncle. I dropped out of high school my junior year and went off to fight in Vietnam then came back home to go into business with my uncle, the family mechanic shop. Then I met Mary a few months later and we got married and started a family. I never had the opportunity to finish school or to make anything out of myself.

The boys needed their education, it was just that simple. The things they learned in school did come in handy some times. Especially Dean's Biology studies, even though the kid spent more time looking at the human reproduction chapter than anything else. I once got a call from his teacher, saying that Dean had been flirting in class and not paying any attention. I sighed at the thought. When I went to tell Dean that I would give him the keys to the Impala, I saw that nothing had changed. Dean was in Biology, of all classes to walk into and was chatting up girls. I swear that kid had an untamable libido. I then had to go to the middle school to talk to Sam before going to the car rental dealership.

Sam was completely different in terms of school. My youngest was eager to learn and was forever studying his butt off. He made it known that he didn't like hunting, that he wanted to have a normal life. Sorry kid, but sometimes you gotta play with the hand you're dealt. Dean was eager to learn, but it was only hunting, not anything academic. In a way, I admired my youngest son for standing up to me and letting what he wanted to be known. That’s why I set up that college fund for the both of them, well actually for the three of them….

Mary…. I had never stopped thinking about her. She was everything to me. It had been…… wow 12 years since she was ripped away from me. 12 years since Bobby told me all about the supernatural world around me. 12 years since I saw my baby girl for the last time.

Isabella would be 13 now, had that much time passed? I had missed so much of her life, birthdays, first tooth, first steps, and maybe even first boyfriends. God help the boy if I’m around for that.

I often catch myself thinking about her, wondering how she’s doing. I have to admit that part of my reason for enrolling the boys in this school was so that maybe they would see her, and could tell me if she was doing alright. I couldn’t bring myself to ask Dean to look for her. She was a sore subject with him.

I had told him when he was younger that he was never to tell Sam about her. I didn’t need both of them down my throat about it. I knew that it was better for Isabella to be with Charlie, there was no way I could handle raising a daughter. It was all I could do raising two boys, and in fact it was mostly Dean who did the raising. I kind of hated saddling Dean with a grown up’s job but what could I do? One lead on Yellow Eyes lead to another family that needed my help for one reason or another. And honestly, I couldn’t trust Dean with raising Isabella, remember the biology class? Besides, I couldn’t handle having to look at her face every day and be reminded that Mary was gone and was never coming back.

I was in the hallway by now. I had stopped by the office to get a name badge and to ask which class Sam was in. It was odd being in a school after so many years. I had to stop a few people and ask for directions because I had gotten lost, took a wrong turn, or completely forgotten the directions the secretary gave me.

I had finally made it to his classroom and was about to knock on the door when I saw her.

She had dark brown hair just like Sam’s with faint streaks of Mary’s blonde hair, and her posture mimicked Mary’s distinctly, who else could it be but my Isabella?

I knocked on the door, but never heard the sound because at the same time she turned to stare at me.

Her green eyes seemed to bore into mine going deep down into my soul, just like Mary’s did. It was just like looking at a darker haired version of Mary when she was her age. All I could do was stare at this young girl who was probably terrified of me, but I couldn’t help staring at her. All this time there was a void in my heart that I had never known existed, all my thoughts actions and emotions were bent on finding the thing that killed my Mary, her mother, and killing it, to avenge her. But all the plans for killing Yellow Eyes seemed to vanish into thin air as I stared at that little girl; it was like having a little piece of Mary.

 

How could I have been so stupid as to give her away?

 

I saw the teacher out of the corner of my wave to me to come in. I finally tore my gaze from the little girl and poked my head in the door. “Sorry for interrupting but I need to speak to my son, Sam. This will only take a second.” I tried to reign in my emotions and had to focus on finding Sam’s desk so I wouldn’t look back at her.

Sam turned around in his chair to look at me. Couldn’t they have let them sit together? It looked wrong for the two of them to be so far apart. But then again, I guess I forced that on them already. As he came down the aisle to meet me there was no denying that they were twins. Sam was a little taller than she was and had shorter hair but they were my babies. We walked out of the classroom and I waited till the door shut before I started talking.

“You left your knife in the car this morning.” I handed it to him trying to push Isabella out of my head, now was not the best time or place to tell him that he has a long lost sister that was in fact his twin sister.

“You interrupted my class to tell me that?” Sam sighed. I could tell that he was upset with me. He took his education very seriously and made it clear that he didn’t want hunting to be involved.

“Well, you never know when you’ll need it.” But sometimes you can’t stop being who you are.

“Dad I don’t think there’s a monster here.” He leaned against the wall and refused to look at me. He sighed and swiped the knife from my hand quickly stuffing it into his pocket.

“Keep your voice down Sam.” Does he want to put us on some FBI watch list? “Ok, I really came here to tell you that I’m not going to be able to pick you up today. Dean is coming to get you; I’ve given him the impala to drive so you can go back to the motel. Make sure that you two lock the doors and windows.” This thing that I was hunting was a nasty little critter and I had been stupid enough to lead it straight to the motel that we were staying at. Oh that reminds me. “And make sure you salt them too.”

“Yea Dad, we will, we always do.” He sighed again, I knew he got tired of having to put up with supernatural part of our lives but he was going to have to get used to it, it’s the only way to keep him safe.

And what a fat lot of good it’s doing for that poor girl in there who doesn’t know the first thing about hunting.

I couldn’t stand it anymore; I had to ask him. “Do you know anything about that girl that’s sitting towards the back?”

“Not much why? Do you know her?” So he did notice my stare earlier. Oh well, it was bound to happen sometime. I guess I’ll have to tell him tonight, on the bright side, I won’t have to think about what to get him this year for his birthday…

“Keep tabs on her will you Sammy?” I felt guilt like I had never felt it before. I should never have come here. What if this thing starts hunting down my daughter? Sure Charlie was a hunter but he’s rusty at it. There was no way that he could protect Isabella.

“Why?” Sam kept badgering me about the why’s and wouldn’t let up. Jeez kid, can’t you wait till I get home tonight?

“Because…” I should just go ahead and get this over with. He’ll probably take it better in a public setting than he would in the privacy of a motel room. Come on John, just spit it out! “Because I asked you to, that’s why.” I just couldn’t do it.

“Yes sir.” He replied. Those two words held the weight of a conviction that was almost too much to bear. The kid’s heart was going to be crushed that Dean and I have been lying to him all these years. And what about Isabella? She has a voice in this too.

He walked back into his class then without telling me goodbye, it kind of stung a little but he would get over it. “See you later kid.” I ruffled his hair slightly.

Isabella turned slightly so that I could just barely make out her profile behind her curtain of dark hair. I had to tear my eyes away from her and try to remember how to walk out of the building.

I knew then what I had to do. I had to go ask Charlie to give me my daughter back.

I knew all those years had been wasted lying to myself. Isabella needed to come home.

 


	4. Trying to Put Together a Broken Mirror

**Chapter 3: Trying to Put Together a Broken Mirror**

**Bella POV**

There was a rental car sitting in the driveway behind Charlie’s cruiser. “I wonder who that is.” I asked aloud. I didn’t miss the look that the two brothers shared.

“Do you want us to go in with you Bella?” Dean looked at me from the rear view mirror.

“No it’s ok; it’s probably Billy Black, one of Charlie’s friends.” I replied. “He lives down on the reservation down at La Push beach. He’s been having car troubles recently.”

“Beach?” Dean smirked. “This place has a beach? Man, this place just got 20 percent cooler.”

Billy was a cool guy, for an old man. He had two twin daughters named Rachel and Rebecca that were my age and a young boy named Jacob. Charlie told me that he had met Billy when he had to go down to the reservation and break up a rain dance, as if this place needed more rain…. But Billy says they bonded over fishing and being single Dad’s. They would always put me and the twins together, it was always fun hanging out with them, and they didn’t treat me any different because I wasn’t Charlie’s biological daughter.

“Thanks for the ride guys. I guess I’d better go in. Charlie is probably feeding him stale crackers by now.” The thought of Charlie trying to feed anyone besides himself scared me.

“Are you sure Bella? We could go in with you if you wanted.” Sam looked worried, as if something was going to eat me if I went inside.

“Uh, thanks for offering but I don’t think the sheriff would approve of me bringing in two strange boys.” I knew for a fact that every one of the friends that I brought home over the years had to bring a back ground check and a copy of their recent medical history just to spend the night.

“Alright, well it was nice meeting you Bella.” Dean turned around to shake my hand.

“Nice meeting you too Dean.” I smiled back at him. There was something in his smile that was a little off but I brushed it off, worried about Charlie. I got out of the car and slammed the door.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at school I guess Sam.” I leaned over to stick my head in the door.

“I’ll see you.” Sam seemed preoccupied himself.

I turned around and started walking to the house. When I reached the porch I heard Sam call out to me.

“Oh, Bella!” I turned to see a big grin on his face. “Happy birthday!”

I laughed. “You too.”

I turned just in time to stand face to face with Mr. Winchester. He stared at me with a dumbfounded expression on his face.

“I’ll see you later John.” I heard Charlie’s voice coming down the hall. “Oh…. Hey Bella.” He noticed me standing behind the imposing figure.

“Mr. Winchester.” I smiled through an awkward greeting. I didn’t turn to look but I could feel two sets of eyes locked in on the porch.

“Hello.” He blurted out before he walked around me and back to his rental car.

I walked in, past a frozen Charlie, set my stuff down in the entry way and walked into the kitchen. I worked better under stress when I was cooking.

Why was Mr. Winchester at my house? Did Charlie’s reaction to them earlier have anything to do with it? Dean was acting strange in the car, but what did I know? I knew he was already a jerk, maybe he was a strange jerk?

And Sam, what was the deal with him? We seemed to have so much in common; both of our mothers are gone. He has an older brother like the kid that is in my nightmare and now that I think about it, that… impala was it? That car is in my nightmares too.

This was all getting too weird, I needed to sit down.

“Bells, you ok?” Charlie’s voice made me jump.

“No Charlie.” I shook my head in disbelief. “What was Mr. Winchester doing over here? I heard him telling Sam that he wasn’t going to come pick him up today, I thought it was so that he could get over to Seattle.”

“Well not exactly.” Charlie scratched his head like he was trying to figure out how to phrase something correctly. “Bella, there’s something I need to tell you.” He moved to the kitchen chair and sat down. “I think you should sit down.”

I tried to take a deep breath as I steadied myself for his next words. I calmly sat down and faced him.

“Your father didn’t die in that house fire, he’s still alive.” He started.

I stopped breathing, could it really be true? Could my father still be out there, searching for me?

“But what does this have to do with Mr. Winchester?” That was the first question that popped into my head. Not, ‘Where is he?’ or ‘Where has he been all these years?’

Charlie looked down at the table. He sat like that for a few minutes, so long that I thought that he might have gone to sleep. But he looked back at me and biting his lip, he pulled a letter out of his jacket pocket. “It’s all spelled out in this letter.”

“What is this?” I asked. The letter had my name, Isabella Marie, spelled neatly on the front in simple black ink.

“Just open it.” Charlie got up from the table and turned his back on me, leaned against the door frame and hung his head.

With cautious and shaking hands, I tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter that had been written on a piece of Miller Tree Inn stationary and I began to read.

_Dear Isabella,_

_You don’t know how many times I have tried to write this letter. How many trees that probably died because of all the times I would start this letter just to throw it away. But what can I say? I don’t have a way with words._

_I am your father, you are probably wondering why I let you believe that I was dead all these years. Don’t blame Charlie; he was only doing what I asked. But I thought that if you thought I was dead that it would be easier for you to move on and forget about me. I thought I could forget you as well, you are so much better off without me in your life anyway._

_But seeing you today brought back all those memories and brought to my attention how much of your life that I had missed out on. I also realized that you have missed out on a lot that your brother’s and I have done._

_If you are still reading this, which I hope you are, I want you to know that it’s nothing that you did to make me not want to keep you. I regretted giving you up the moment that we left the city limits of Forks, but I couldn’t bring myself to come back into your life and destroying it._

_I would like to talk to you, if you want to talk to me. We have so much to catch up on. I’ve left a phone number with Charlie._

_~~Love, Sincerely,~~ John Winchester_

As I read I touched every tear that had stained the page. I had a knot in my throat that I couldn’t swallow, John Winchester was my father, Dean Winchester was my older, and Sam Winchester was my twin brother.

That must make me Isabella Marie Winchester, the next in line of hunters of the supernatural.

 


	5. Getting the Band back Together

**Chapter 4: Getting the Band Back Together**

Nine Years Later

I have often wondered who I am.

Not in the literal sense like I’ve lost my memory, I know exactly who I am. No, the question of my identity goes back further than that, I have always felt like there was a part of me that was like a missing piece to a jigsaw puzzle, like there was some part of me that was missing.

It has been nine years since I got in the now infamous impala with three men that I had only just met and set off across the country hunting down monsters. Nine years since I learned the truth about my parents and who I really am.

My name is Isabella Marie Winchester. I am 22 years old, have a twin brother at Stanford and I travel across the country with my dad and my brother saving people and hunting things.

You know, the family business.

I had to beg the guys to take me on a hunt. I held them at gun-point actually. I was so excited to have my family back but it was boring being left in the motel room while Dean and Dad went out on hunts. Don’t get me wrong, Sam was the best brother I could ask for, but all he cared about was school, he was the same kid that I had met on that first day.

The funniest part is that Dean, being the big brother type that he is, thought he was going to ‘teach me everything he knows’ about hunting. Man, you should have seen the look on his face when I blew him away at the gun range.

He had blown through three shots, all in the 8 to 9 rings. “Pretty good Dean.” I tried to hide my smirk.

“Well I know it can be daunting to see a guy that has a few years under his belt preform that well, but ah, I could give you some pointers if you would like.” And, pause for dramatic effect, that signature grin of his came out.

Now on normal circumstances, handing a 15 year old a gun was probably not the brightest decision in the world, I mean they do have laws against that right? But Dean had no clue what he was dealing with. I decided to play along with his bit; I could keep it up as long as he could.

“Yeah it is a little scary. I hope I can get to be as good as you someday.” I smiled sheepishly and took the gun from him gingerly; like it was going to go off and I would shoot myself. Part of being a good hunter, and a Winchester, was to be a good actor, i.e. lying.

Dean beamed with pride and stepped back to give me ‘pointers’. “Now make sure you aim, that’s the most important part…”

Before he could get out anything else I raised the glock and fired it three times. I hit the target in the nine, one on the line between nine and ten and the last one in the ten ring. “Oh, I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you. What did you say about aim?” I turned to see Dean’s dumbfounded expression. Sam was laughing his head off sitting on the hood of the impala. Dad had gone to get us lunch and was sitting beside Sam. He did the best spit take in the history of spit takes and then started laughing with Sam.

I walked back to Dean and handed him his glock. “I’m a cop’s kid. Charlie took me to the range every weekend with him ever since I was eight years old. But don’t worry; maybe you’ll get to be as good as me someday.”

Sam gave me a high five as I joined them on the hood. “Dude, you just got your butt handed to you by a girl.”

“And not just any girl, your baby sister!” Dad joined in.

“Oh ha-ha very funny.” Dean grumbled as he shoved half his hot dog down his throat.

 

And there was also that time a few months after I went off with them that Dean had gone to a fireworks place and bought about 30 bucks worth of firepower. We set them off on July forth, and then ended up setting the whole field on fire…

There were also normal times, well abnormal in our case. Dad put us in school for cases that took longer than usual to wrap up. When we were 15 Sam was on the mathletes team for whatever school we were at.

I could see what part of the draw was for Sam wanting to live a normal life, it was nice to have some ‘normal time’ every once in a while. I had lived a normal life for 13 years. But when you are a Winchester, those moments come few and far between.

There were some bad times too. Like the day Sam left us for Stanford. Dean and I had gone out to get some food, because he wouldn’t stop complaining about it, and when we got back, Sam was gone.

Dad didn’t talk about it, he would only tell us that “Sam has his own life now, let him live It.” and leave it at that.

But I still kept in contact with him; he was my twin after all. I would send him letters telling about the different things we hunted, and he would send replies back, I had a few P.O. boxes scattered over the country that he would send letters too. There was also the occasional phone call. I would always make them when Dad and Dean were out, it was a sensitive subject with the two of them, and we would never talk about why he left. I was trying to live by Dad’s order, let him live his own life.

It has been two years since he had stopped writing me.

“We have to go see him.” I protested.

“No, he chose to live his own life, let’s let him live it.” Dean wasn’t paying much attention to me; the number of beaded necklaces that were strung around his neck was getting ridiculous. A big Marti gras style party was in full swing and this was how Dean wanted to ‘celebrate’ ganking the voodoo witch doctor.

“Dean! Dad’s been missing for weeks now!” I started jerking his jacket to get his attention.

“Hey! Watch the jacket!” he protested. “Look Sam doesn’t want to see us okay?”

I had to pull out the big guns, I started sniffling, and hyperventilating, and finally, big tears started gushing out. “Dean please! You are my big brother! All I want to do is see Sammy and to get Daddy back! PLEASE!?” My voice kept getting louder and higher and people started to look at us.

“Alright, alright! God you are such a nag!” Dean growled in irritation.

I smiled triumphantly all the way to Stanford. We were finally going to get the band back together.

 


	6. Normal is For Suckers

**Chapter 5: Normal is for Suckers**

 “Man, I can’t believe that chump settled on this rather than hunting.” Dean griped as we passed by the Stanford sign.

“Shut up Dean.” I punched him in the arm. “The hunter life-style isn’t for everyone.”

“Well maybe we should go check and see if Bobby can help us find him then.” Dean went to turn the car around but I moved to stop him.

“Dean he’s Sam’s dad too.” I dropped into more serious topics. On the list of things not to talk about, Sam’s loyalty to the family was near the top.

“I’ll tell you now, he’s not gonna help us.” Dean pulled into the parking lot and got out of the car. I sighed when he slammed the door. This should be fun…

We asked around until we found his apartment a little ways down from the school, no one was at home.

“Well it is Halloween night.” I mused. “Maybe he’s out trick or treating?” I laughed trying to get Dean out of his funk.

Dean rolled his eyes. “I really hate Halloween.” So much for that idea….

So for the better part of two hours we sat in the car stalking the parking lot waiting for Sam to come back. And after Dean had hustled me out of twenty bucks a car pulled in the parking lot. We checked to make sure it was Sam before we made our move. I was shocked to find that he had a girl in the car with him.

“Sammy’s been busy huh?” Dean grinned.

“I guess that’s why he stopped writing to me.” I said before I realized Dean didn’t know about that.

“What?” He asked in a shocked tone.

“Nothing, let’s go.” I quickly got out of the car to avoid his nit picking questions.

I wanted to do the sensible thing and go knock on the door like a normal person would, but no, Dean wanted to be dramatic, so we waited after they went to bed and it was nearly 4 a.m.

“You have reached a whole new level of weird Dean.” I rolled my eyes as I helped him climb the gutters up to Sam’s window.

“Shut up Izzy,” Dean grinned, his teeth gleaming in the moonlight. “you know you love it.”

I smirked at his pet name for me as he helped me up and he opened the window as quietly as he could. Once inside we walked into the kitchen, the moon was full helping Dean to spot the refrigerator.

“What are you doing?” I whispered as he walked over to it and opened it.

“What? I’m thirsty!” He whispered back retrieving a beer from within. “I’m sure Sammy won’t mind.”

I sighed as I explored the kitchen some more. Dean moved to other parts of the apartment.

I whipped my head around and froze to the sound of beads knocking together. I hope that idiot doesn’t do something stupid.

Then I heard the sound of two people wrestling each other. I rolled my eyes and slowly made my way over to the door and peaked around. It was a little hard to see but I had a front row seat to WWE Brawlers: the brother edition.

“Whoa! Easy tiger” Dean started laughing as Sam started struggling.

“Dean?” Sam growled through his breathless gasping. Dean kept laughing in response and made no move to get off of him. “You scared the crap out of me!”

“That’s ‘cause you’re out of practice.” I couldn’t see his expression but I could probably guess that he was wearing his jerk face. Sam grabbed Dean’s hand and pulled, slamming his heel into Dean’s back and threw him to the floor and rolled on top of him. “Or not. Get off of me.”

Sam got off and helped Dean to his feet. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Well, I was looking for a beer.” Dean pointed to the lone beer bottle sitting on the floor where Sam had knocked it from Dean’s hand. Dean put his hand on Sam’s shoulders, shook once, and then let go.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Sam reiterated his earlier question. “And I assume you didn’t come here alone?”

“Alright Izzy, the jig is up.” I assumed Dean was talking to me so I crawled out from my hiding spot.

“Hi Sam.” I waved and smiled sheepishly.

“Will someone please tell me what the hell you two are doing in my apartment at four in the morning?”

“Okay. All right. We gotta talk.” Dean dropped the act.

“Uh, the phone?” Sam pulled out his cell phone and held it up to Dean.

Dean looked at me before he turned to Sam again. “If I had called would you have picked up? Izzy on the other hand…”

I shared a glance with Sam, I guess I should have told him I was talking to Sam behind his back, but it’s too late now to change that.

The lights switched on and we all turned to see a little blonde wearing very short shorts and a cropped Smurfs shirt.

“Sam?” She looked at the three of us.

And that is how Jessica met Sam’s creepy family. We talked about how much Dean loved the Smurfs; I was going to smack him for her later. And we also told Sam why we were there.

“Dad hasn’t been home in a few days.” He was trying to keep it on normal topics; I will applaud him for that.

“So, he’s working overtime on a Miller Time shift. He’ll stumble back in sooner or later.” I knew Sam wasn’t very happy hearing about Dad.

Dean sighed and looked back up; before he could speak again I walked forward and spoke up.

“Dad’s on a hunting trip. And he hasn’t been home in a few days.” I looked Sam directly in his eyes, I hopped it wasn’t so much that he would hate me for breaking his normalcy policy but he was being stupid right now. His irritated expression didn’t change as he processed what I had blurted out. Jessica glanced up at him waiting to see if he would explain what I meant.

“Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside.” Sam told her, not looking at her.

…

“Are you coming or not?” Dean finally asked Sam after they had finished fighting in the parking lot. They could be such idiots sometimes.

“No, I’m not.”

“Why not?” Dean protested angrily.

“I swore I was done hunting. For good.”

“Come on.” Dean tried to tone down his temper. “It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t that bad.” He started heading for the car.

“Dean!” I groaned. He was doing what he always does, runs away from a serious conversation. I had to give it to my brother. He was the best hunter I had ever seen, next to Dad of course, but his conversational skills were a bit lacking.

“The way we grew up, after mom was killed, and Dad’s obsession to find the thing that killed her.” then he turned and looked at me. “Or how about the fact that he gave away our sister and never told us about her?”

“Yeah, about that….” Dean ran his fingers through his hair.

“So you knew about her too?” Sam’s face turned to disgust as he went for Dean’s throat.

“Stop it!” I screamed. By this time we had an audience, there were college kids gawking at us from their windows and there were a few runners that had paused to watch us. Sam noticed too and let go of Dean.

Dean tried to resist the urge to pummel the crap out of Sam and walked to the car and got into it. I followed suit creeping into the back.

Sam hesitated at the passenger door, instead of getting in the car he leaned into the window. “Dean, do you think Mom would have wanted this for us?” Dean rolled his eyes and refused to look at Sam. “The weapon training and melting the sliver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors. Bella was the only one of us that had a chance and Dad sucked her into this too.”

“I have my own mind and my own choices Sam.” I pouted from the back seat.

So after Dean plead his case for Sam to help us, and Sam countered with his plea for normalcy, he finally agreed to hear us out. We showed him the missing person’s reports that I had dug up over the past few days. Then Dean played the last voicemail that Dad had sent us. It was really eerie, and Sam picked up on the evp.

 “All right. I’ll go.” Sam sighed. “I’ll help you find him. But I have to get back first thing Monday.” He pointed to Dean. “Just wait here.” Sam started walking back to the apartment.

“What’s first thing Monday?” Dean called to him.

Sam turned around, reluctant to answer. “I have this… I have an interview.”

“What, a job interview?” Dean replied. “Skip it.”

“Dean!” I punched him. “It’s none of our business.”

“It’s a law school interview, and it’s my whole future on a plate.” Sam called back.

“Law school?” Dean questioned, smirking.

“So do we have a deal or not?” Sam crossed his arms against his chest.

Dean said nothing in reply.

“Well at least if he becomes a lawyer maybe he can get you out of jail cause I sure won’t bail you out.” I laughed as I walked back to the car. I had only been happier once before, when Dad came to get me.

 


	7. Why I Said Yes

**Chapter 6: Why I Said Yes**

We had just gotten to Jericho about two hours ago and Dean had to stop and get gas. He had started the pump and went inside to get ‘breakfast’. I rolled my eyes as I saw him come out bearing junk food. Sam was sitting in the passenger’s seat and was rummaging through Dean’s box of tapes.

“Does Dean have any music from the present in here?” Sam asked me.

I laughed. “I have found that it’s better to just let him do his own thing.” I smirked as I pulled out my own box and showed it to him. “I have to hide all my CD’s from him; he says that they are the death of cassettes.” I had my CD player in there too; it was a present from Dad, probably one of my most treasured possessions, seeing it again just made me miss him more.

“Hey!” Dean called out to us. “Do you guys want some breakfast?”

“No thanks.” Sam grimaced at the offering of Twinkies.

“You know junk food is going to kill you Dean.” I reminded him.

“Yeah? Well everything is going to kill you now-a-days so I might as well die happy and with a full tank.” Dean smiled as he threw down another Twinkie.

“I swear, man, you’ve gotta update your cassette tape collection.” Sam kept pawing through the box of tapes again.

“You don’t wanna go there Sam.” I tried to warn him.

“Why?” They completely ignored me, as usual.

“Well, for one, they’re cassette tapes. And two. Black Sabbath? Motorhead? Metallica?” He held up every tape by name.

Dean didn’t say a word; he just took the tape labeled Metallica from Sam.

“It’s the greatest hits of mullet rock.” Sam kept pushing his luck.

“Well, house rules, Sammy.” Dean smiled as he pushed the tape in the player. “Driver picks the music, shot gun and back seat drivers,” He looked at me in the rear view mirror. “shut their cake holes.”

“I told you so Sam.” I sighed.

Dean turned the key and started the engine. With a smile on his face, he revved the engine and speed off down the highway.

I pulled the seat belt across me as I watched the two of them bicker back and forth playfully, just like the good old days, except the seats were rearranged.

I would sit on the passenger’s side of the back seat, Sam would sit next to me, Dean would be in front of me, and Dad would be driving. We shared so much in this car, it was hard for me to realize that all of us were sitting in this car but one of us was missing.

I had the CD player that he had given me sitting in my lap. I pulled a CD from the box at random and put it in. I closed my eyes as I put on the headphones and leaned my head back. The heart wrenching songs filled my ears; it just made me miss him more.

I thought about the day that Charlie had given me that note telling me that John was my father. I’ll have to admit, I was a little scared at first. John Winchester was a pretty gruff and intimidating man at a first glance. But something in me wanted to at least talk to him. I had always felt that I had been missing out on something. I usually felt it when Charlie would take me to student parent teacher nights in elementary school.

Basically what happened was that all the student’s throughout the year would make art projects, dances, good grades or whatever it was that made them special and at the end of the year we had a day where the parent’s would come in and get to see their kids work and be so proud of them. Charlie always told me how proud he was of me and would give me the biggest hugs, but there was still a hollow burn in my chest that would flare up every time I would see one of the other kids talking with their parents. It was even worse when the other kids would tease me about them.

“Why ain’t you got a mommy or daddy?”

“Did your parents hate you so much that they couldn’t stand you?”

“Come on girls, we don’t wanna play with her, she doesn’t have any parents.”

So naturally I pulled away from everyone, I didn’t go out for sports teams, join any clubs, or really find a niche where I was accepted by anyone. That’s why Charlie started taking me to the shooting range with him. I had finally found something that I was good at, I was a great shooter.

Of course Charlie didn’t give an eight year old a loaded gun, are you kidding me? I started off with a Nerf gun. The first time I shot at the target I hit in the five ring. All the other guys in the range thought that it was cute that I could shoot the target with a suction cup bullet. Charlie didn’t share their sentiments. He knew that I came from a long line of ‘gun slingers’ and decided to train me. At the time I didn’t know that I was a hunter by blood, I just knew I had found my place to shine.

Although, a nine year old shooting a gun isn’t exactly something you can ‘show and tell’.

By the time I was in Middle school I could shoot in the 8 and 9 rings without breaking a sweat. Now I know what you are asking yourselves, how did a minor gain access to a gun? Well, you forget that my guardian is a sheriff.

The time that I shot in the 9 and 10 rings, when I took Dean down a few pegs, I will never forget the look on Dad’s face when he finally stopped laughing. He was… _proud._ He was so proud of me. I would have started crying if I thought Sam and Dean wouldn’t bust my chops for it.

That’s why I decided to go with him, I remember that day in the coffee shop like it was yesterday…

“I’m really glad that you decided to meet me Isabella.” He couldn’t believe that I had come.

“Me too… Mr. Winchester.” I smiled awkwardly; I really didn’t know what to call him. I didn’t want to freak him out by calling him Dad and I didn’t know his first name so I just went with what I knew.

“You can call me John if you’d like.” He seemed a little sad when I called him that.

“Okay John.” I smiled again. We kind of just sat in silence for a few minutes, I could tell he didn’t know what to say and I was at a loss for words myself. When I was a kid I thought about this conversation a million times, what I would say to my parents if I ever met them. But now I couldn’t think of a single word to say.

“Oh, happy almost birthday.” John reached into his jacket and pulled out a plain white box with a pink bow on it and handed it to me.

“What’s this?” I took the box and shook it carefully, whatever it was thumped against the box.

“It’s an early birthday present.”

I pulled the box top off and found a white round CD player inside it.

“I know it’s not much and it probably doesn’t make up for all the birthday’s that I missed but…”

“I love it.” I stopped him before he could say another word.

“The girl at the store said that you had been in almost every day looking at it, so I figured it would be the right thing to get you.” He fiddled with his hands as he spoke, not making eye contact, like father like son I suppose, not the best with words.

“It’s perfect, thank you John.” I reached over and touched his hands.

He stopped fiddling and looked up at me. “I’m sure you have loads of questions for me.” He got right down to business.

“Well in fact I do.” I tried to remember some of the questions that I thought about, but for some reason I couldn’t remember a single one, so I started off with asking questions about her. “What was mom like? Was she pretty?”

John looked a little taken aback, I guess he was expecting me to hurl accusations at him and call him out for leaving me behind. “Well, your mom was the prettiest thing that I had ever laid eyes on, and she was very kind and gentle, but strong and confident to.” He had the biggest smile on his face when he talked about her, but it turned to a frown soon after. “I wish you had been able to meet her. She would have loved you.”

“Really?” I asked, it was nice to know, I didn’t know what to expect but it was nice.

“Yea, she accused me of being sexist when Dean was born, she told me that I was going to give her a daughter even if it killed me.” He stopped short after that and I decided to move on to other topics.

“So not only do I get a Dad but I also get two brothers?”

John huffed. “Yea, good luck with that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sam isn’t so bad, he gets a little moody but you learn to live with it. Dean is well…. Dean. He’s the one that I’m going to have to bail out of jail one of these days.”

“Yeah, I kinda got that from riding home with him.” I laughed and he joined in. “What about your ‘job’?” I decided to go for the punch.

“What? Being a traveling salesman?” John lied smoothly.

“I know about what you told Sam in the hallway.” I figured he would be upset hearing that but he just sat back and stared at me.

“I can’t really talk about work here; I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” I didn’t understand what he meant; I thought he was working a case.

“Yea, when we come to take you with us.” His expression changed a little. “That is if you want to come with us. The choice is yours of course.” His face still held a little hope but was a little crestfallen.

At the time I was only thinking about spending more time with my Dad, after all I had just met him and didn’t want to lose him. On the other hand, it meant leaving school, and Charlie. Could I really let Charlie fend for himself?

“Can I have some time to think about it?” I asked, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, I just couldn’t say yes or no. “If you don’t mind.”

“Of course!” He sprang up out of the booth. “Take all the time you need Isabella.”

“Actually, I prefer Bella.” I stood up as well.

“Okay, Bella.” He smiled a little.

 

I opened my eyes again and we were still on the road, I took out my headphones to get caught up.

“Thank you.” Sam had been on the phone and had just hung up. “All right. So there’s no one matching Dad at the hospital or morgue. So that’s something, I guess.”

“Thank God.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

Dean glanced at both of us and then back to the road. We came up to a bridge where two police cars were blocking the road and several officers were standing around. “Check it out.”

Then Sam and Dean became federal marshals and I became the ‘student who was shadowing them for a school project’. I was going to kill him for that….

We questioned the officers that were there and they had confirmed that the news stories I had pulled up were true. The next step in investigating was to come up with a theory about what you are hunting based on what you know. This time we were dealing with an abandoned car that was clean of any fingerprints and no sign of struggle.

Dean asked questions like, “Were the victims connected?” “Did they know each other?” and “What’s your theory?”

They instantly go to the serial murder or a kidnaping ring, the usual. So after we questioned the officers, and dodged the real FBI, we went to the town.

The marquee on the movie theater read: EMERGENCY TOWN HALL MEETING SUNDAY 8 PM BE SAFE OUT THERE!

We saw a girl that had a stack of posters in one hand and a stapler in the other hand. She was hanging up missing posters of the kid that owned the abandoned car.

We questioned her, pawning ourselves off as relatives, very distant relatives, looking for him too. She agreed to answer some questions that we had and she took us to a diner. She told us about the rumors that were going around, some kind of local legend about a girl who got murdered out on Centennial a few decades ago, the same place where the police found the car. Supposedly she’s still out there and she hitchhikes, whoever picks her up disappears forever.

The three of us exchanged glances. With that little nugget of information, it was time to start researching.

Dean was so out of his element, he usually left all the research for me to do, but this time it was all hands on deck. He sat down at a computer and was on the _Jericho Herald_ ’s website searching for ‘female murder hitchhiking’. Nothing came up so he changed the words a few times and the same response came up. Sam and I were sitting on either side of him, trying not to laugh.

“Let me try.” Sam offered.

Dean smacked his hand away, “I got it.” Sam shoved Dean’s rolling chair away from the computer and took over. “Dude?! You are such a control freak.”

Sam rolled his eyes and started clicking the keyboard. “So angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?”

“Yeah.” I replied while Dean sulked in his rolling chair.

“Well, maybe it’s not a murder.” Sam clicked on the search bar again and replaced the word ‘murder’ with ‘suicide’.

“Of course.” I said, why didn’t I think of that?

An article pops up titled: _Suicide on Centennial_. It was dated April 25, 1981. Dean forgot his sulking and swiveled over to read with us.

A local woman, Constance Welch, had jumped off of Sylvania Bridge, at mile 33 of Centennial Highway. It said that she had found her kids drown in the bathtub and then she killed herself. Sam scrolled down through the article and there was a picture of the husband and right next to it was a picture of Sylvania Bridge.

“Does that bridge look familiar to you guys?” Dean pointed to the screen.

It was the same bridge that the cops had found the abandoned car.

 


	8. Can't Go Home

**Chapter 6: Why I Said Yes**

We had just gotten to Jericho about two hours ago and Dean had to stop and get gas. He had started the pump and went inside to get ‘breakfast’. I rolled my eyes as I saw him come out bearing junk food. Sam was sitting in the passenger’s seat and was rummaging through Dean’s box of tapes.

“Does Dean have any music from the present in here?” Sam asked me.

I laughed. “I have found that it’s better to just let him do his own thing.” I smirked as I pulled out my own box and showed it to him. “I have to hide all my CD’s from him; he says that they are the death of cassettes.” I had my CD player in there too; it was a present from Dad, probably one of my most treasured possessions, seeing it again just made me miss him more.

“Hey!” Dean called out to us. “Do you guys want some breakfast?”

“No thanks.” Sam grimaced at the offering of Twinkies.

“You know junk food is going to kill you Dean.” I reminded him.

“Yeah? Well everything is going to kill you now-a-days so I might as well die happy and with a full tank.” Dean smiled as he threw down another Twinkie.

“I swear, man, you’ve gotta update your cassette tape collection.” Sam kept pawing through the box of tapes again.

“You don’t wanna go there Sam.” I tried to warn him.

“Why?” They completely ignored me, as usual.

“Well, for one, they’re cassette tapes. And two. Black Sabbath? Motorhead? Metallica?” He held up every tape by name.

Dean didn’t say a word; he just took the tape labeled Metallica from Sam.

“It’s the greatest hits of mullet rock.” Sam kept pushing his luck.

“Well, house rules, Sammy.” Dean smiled as he pushed the tape in the player. “Driver picks the music, shot gun and back seat drivers,” He looked at me in the rear view mirror. “shut their cake holes.”

“I told you so Sam.” I sighed.

Dean turned the key and started the engine. With a smile on his face, he revved the engine and speed off down the highway.

I pulled the seat belt across me as I watched the two of them bicker back and forth playfully, just like the good old days, except the seats were rearranged.

I would sit on the passenger’s side of the back seat, Sam would sit next to me, Dean would be in front of me, and Dad would be driving. We shared so much in this car, it was hard for me to realize that all of us were sitting in this car but one of us was missing.

I had the CD player that he had given me sitting in my lap. I pulled a CD from the box at random and put it in. I closed my eyes as I put on the headphones and leaned my head back. The heart wrenching songs filled my ears; it just made me miss him more.

I thought about the day that Charlie had given me that note telling me that John was my father. I’ll have to admit, I was a little scared at first. John Winchester was a pretty gruff and intimidating man at a first glance. But something in me wanted to at least talk to him. I had always felt that I had been missing out on something. I usually felt it when Charlie would take me to student parent teacher nights in elementary school.

Basically what happened was that all the student’s throughout the year would make art projects, dances, good grades or whatever it was that made them special and at the end of the year we had a day where the parent’s would come in and get to see their kids work and be so proud of them. Charlie always told me how proud he was of me and would give me the biggest hugs, but there was still a hollow burn in my chest that would flare up every time I would see one of the other kids talking with their parents. It was even worse when the other kids would tease me about them.

“Why ain’t you got a mommy or daddy?”

“Did your parents hate you so much that they couldn’t stand you?”

“Come on girls, we don’t wanna play with her, she doesn’t have any parents.”

So naturally I pulled away from everyone, I didn’t go out for sports teams, join any clubs, or really find a niche where I was accepted by anyone. That’s why Charlie started taking me to the shooting range with him. I had finally found something that I was good at, I was a great shooter.

Of course Charlie didn’t give an eight year old a loaded gun, are you kidding me? I started off with a Nerf gun. The first time I shot at the target I hit in the five ring. All the other guys in the range thought that it was cute that I could shoot the target with a suction cup bullet. Charlie didn’t share their sentiments. He knew that I came from a long line of ‘gun slingers’ and decided to train me. At the time I didn’t know that I was a hunter by blood, I just knew I had found my place to shine.

Although, a nine year old shooting a gun isn’t exactly something you can ‘show and tell’.

By the time I was in Middle school I could shoot in the 8 and 9 rings without breaking a sweat. Now I know what you are asking yourselves, how did a minor gain access to a gun? Well, you forget that my guardian is a sheriff.

The time that I shot in the 9 and 10 rings, when I took Dean down a few pegs, I will never forget the look on Dad’s face when he finally stopped laughing. He was… _proud._ He was so proud of me. I would have started crying if I thought Sam and Dean wouldn’t bust my chops for it.

That’s why I decided to go with him, I remember that day in the coffee shop like it was yesterday…

“I’m really glad that you decided to meet me Isabella.” He couldn’t believe that I had come.

“Me too… Mr. Winchester.” I smiled awkwardly; I really didn’t know what to call him. I didn’t want to freak him out by calling him Dad and I didn’t know his first name so I just went with what I knew.

“You can call me John if you’d like.” He seemed a little sad when I called him that.

“Okay John.” I smiled again. We kind of just sat in silence for a few minutes, I could tell he didn’t know what to say and I was at a loss for words myself. When I was a kid I thought about this conversation a million times, what I would say to my parents if I ever met them. But now I couldn’t think of a single word to say.

“Oh, happy almost birthday.” John reached into his jacket and pulled out a plain white box with a pink bow on it and handed it to me.

“What’s this?” I took the box and shook it carefully, whatever it was thumped against the box.

“It’s an early birthday present.”

I pulled the box top off and found a white round CD player inside it.

“I know it’s not much and it probably doesn’t make up for all the birthday’s that I missed but…”

“I love it.” I stopped him before he could say another word.

“The girl at the store said that you had been in almost every day looking at it, so I figured it would be the right thing to get you.” He fiddled with his hands as he spoke, not making eye contact, like father like son I suppose, not the best with words.

“It’s perfect, thank you John.” I reached over and touched his hands.

He stopped fiddling and looked up at me. “I’m sure you have loads of questions for me.” He got right down to business.

“Well in fact I do.” I tried to remember some of the questions that I thought about, but for some reason I couldn’t remember a single one, so I started off with asking questions about her. “What was mom like? Was she pretty?”

John looked a little taken aback, I guess he was expecting me to hurl accusations at him and call him out for leaving me behind. “Well, your mom was the prettiest thing that I had ever laid eyes on, and she was very kind and gentle, but strong and confident to.” He had the biggest smile on his face when he talked about her, but it turned to a frown soon after. “I wish you had been able to meet her. She would have loved you.”

“Really?” I asked, it was nice to know, I didn’t know what to expect but it was nice.

“Yea, she accused me of being sexist when Dean was born, she told me that I was going to give her a daughter even if it killed me.” He stopped short after that and I decided to move on to other topics.

“So not only do I get a Dad but I also get two brothers?”

John huffed. “Yea, good luck with that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sam isn’t so bad, he gets a little moody but you learn to live with it. Dean is well…. Dean. He’s the one that I’m going to have to bail out of jail one of these days.”

“Yeah, I kinda got that from riding home with him.” I laughed and he joined in. “What about your ‘job’?” I decided to go for the punch.

“What? Being a traveling salesman?” John lied smoothly.

“I know about what you told Sam in the hallway.” I figured he would be upset hearing that but he just sat back and stared at me.

“I can’t really talk about work here; I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” I didn’t understand what he meant; I thought he was working a case.

“Yea, when we come to take you with us.” His expression changed a little. “That is if you want to come with us. The choice is yours of course.” His face still held a little hope but was a little crestfallen.

At the time I was only thinking about spending more time with my Dad, after all I had just met him and didn’t want to lose him. On the other hand, it meant leaving school, and Charlie. Could I really let Charlie fend for himself?

“Can I have some time to think about it?” I asked, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, I just couldn’t say yes or no. “If you don’t mind.”

“Of course!” He sprang up out of the booth. “Take all the time you need Isabella.”

“Actually, I prefer Bella.” I stood up as well.

“Okay, Bella.” He smiled a little.

 

I opened my eyes again and we were still on the road, I took out my headphones to get caught up.

“Thank you.” Sam had been on the phone and had just hung up. “All right. So there’s no one matching Dad at the hospital or morgue. So that’s something, I guess.”

“Thank God.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

Dean glanced at both of us and then back to the road. We came up to a bridge where two police cars were blocking the road and several officers were standing around. “Check it out.”

Then Sam and Dean became federal marshals and I became the ‘student who was shadowing them for a school project’. I was going to kill him for that….

We questioned the officers that were there and they had confirmed that the news stories I had pulled up were true. The next step in investigating was to come up with a theory about what you are hunting based on what you know. This time we were dealing with an abandoned car that was clean of any fingerprints and no sign of struggle.

Dean asked questions like, “Were the victims connected?” “Did they know each other?” and “What’s your theory?”

They instantly go to the serial murder or a kidnaping ring, the usual. So after we questioned the officers, and dodged the real FBI, we went to the town.

The marquee on the movie theater read: EMERGENCY TOWN HALL MEETING SUNDAY 8 PM BE SAFE OUT THERE!

We saw a girl that had a stack of posters in one hand and a stapler in the other hand. She was hanging up missing posters of the kid that owned the abandoned car.

We questioned her, pawning ourselves off as relatives, very distant relatives, looking for him too. She agreed to answer some questions that we had and she took us to a diner. She told us about the rumors that were going around, some kind of local legend about a girl who got murdered out on Centennial a few decades ago, the same place where the police found the car. Supposedly she’s still out there and she hitchhikes, whoever picks her up disappears forever.

The three of us exchanged glances. With that little nugget of information, it was time to start researching.

Dean was so out of his element, he usually left all the research for me to do, but this time it was all hands on deck. He sat down at a computer and was on the _Jericho Herald_ ’s website searching for ‘female murder hitchhiking’. Nothing came up so he changed the words a few times and the same response came up. Sam and I were sitting on either side of him, trying not to laugh.

“Let me try.” Sam offered.

Dean smacked his hand away, “I got it.” Sam shoved Dean’s rolling chair away from the computer and took over. “Dude?! You are such a control freak.”

Sam rolled his eyes and started clicking the keyboard. “So angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?”

“Yeah.” I replied while Dean sulked in his rolling chair.

“Well, maybe it’s not a murder.” Sam clicked on the search bar again and replaced the word ‘murder’ with ‘suicide’.

“Of course.” I said, why didn’t I think of that?

An article pops up titled: _Suicide on Centennial_. It was dated April 25, 1981. Dean forgot his sulking and swiveled over to read with us.

A local woman, Constance Welch, had jumped off of Sylvania Bridge, at mile 33 of Centennial Highway. It said that she had found her kids drown in the bathtub and then she killed herself. Sam scrolled down through the article and there was a picture of the husband and right next to it was a picture of Sylvania Bridge.

“Does that bridge look familiar to you guys?” Dean pointed to the screen.

It was the same bridge that the cops had found the abandoned car.

 


	9. The Past is Already Written

**Chapter 8: The Past is Already Written**

So after we had Sam on board with finding Dad, we spent the next seven months looking for him. During that time we found out that there was something ‘special’ about Sam and me.

I woke up one morning and went to the bathroom, the boys were still in the bed, we were working on some crap case that Sam dreamed up, Dean had driven all night long, Sam too, and they wouldn’t let me drive so it was my turn to go get breakfast. 

 _Hum, what should I get today?_ I thought to myself as I brushed my hair and put it into a pony tail. _I guess I could go to McDonalds, Dean loves those McGriddle things. What am I talking about? Dean loves anything you sit in front of him…_

I heard Sam laugh in the other room. I guess he saw something funny. _Maybe Dean’s got one of those famous hangover mornings that he’s still a little half drunk._

“No Bella I was laughing at what you said about him.” Sam replied back. _She has spent way too much time with Dean_.

“Who else am I going to spend my time with? You stay buried in that computer all day.” I rolled my eyes, walking out of the bathroom.

“What are you talking about?” Sam was sitting on the edge of his bed looking at me like I had an extra head.

“What are _you_ talking about?” I smiled, “You said I am spending too much time with Dean.”

“I never said that….” Sam replied. “Out loud….”

We both sat there, trying to figure out what was going on, and then it dawned on me. “What did you hear me say earlier, when you laughed?”

“You said something about Dean being a human garbage disposal.” Sam laughed again.

“I didn’t say that out loud either. I thought you and Dean were still asleep.”

Sam looked at me incredulously. “Do you think we could have…?”

“Read each other’s minds?” I finished. “I don’t know. Try thinking of something.”

Sam’s face turned thoughtful, _what should I tell her? This is crazy I know she’s messing with me._

“I’m not messing with you. I can hear your thoughts!” I laughed. “I can hear… and see, by the way, that’s gross Sam,” I will never get the picture of him and that werewolf Madison out of my head…. “everything that you think.”

 _Oh crap._ “Do you think it works both ways? You think of something.”

 _You are such a –_ I started to think.

“Hey! Watch your mouth, uh, mind.” Sam’s outraged face was hilarious.

“What I was going to say Sasquatch.” I shrugged my shoulders as I walked over to my bag and got my wallet out.

“I was right; you _do_ spend way too much time with Dean.” Sam rolled his eyes as he flopped back down on the bed.

I let them have both the beds last night. They had deserved to sleep in their own bed. Thankfully this room had a small couch in it so I didn’t have to sleep on the floor.

Just then, Dean stirred, his eyes were half open and his hair was matted to the side of his head from sweating in his sleep. “Did you just say something about me?”

“Nope.” I smiled and laughed uncomfortably. _Do you think we should tell him?_

“No, we were just talking about getting some breakfast.” _No, are you kidding? He’s already freaked out about my nightmare thing, it’s probably best if we keep this to ourselves for a while._

 _Alright Mr. Boss man._ I sighed. “What do you want? I’m buying.”

May kinda blew by. I don’t remember most of it. Sam’s nightmares turned into visions and I found out that I can see people’s pasts. Mine started out as dreams, like Sam’s but I saw the past, the first time I had one it kinda freaked me out.

I woke up and looked at the alarm clock on the desk, it was 6 AM. I decided to get up and get ready, but then I realized I wasn’t in the motel room. I started frantically looking through the room trying to find my stuff; it was nowhere to be seen. Then there was a rattling at the door and I crouched behind the bed. The person in the bed shifted as well, I think it was Dean. The rattling stopped and Dad walked in.

“Dad!” I ran over to him to hug him, but it was like he couldn’t see me. “Daddy?”

He kicked the door shut and walked over to the small table. He rubbed his eyes, looking very tired, like he hadn’t slept in a while. I walked over to look at him; it had been so long since I saw him that I had forgotten what he looked like.

He looked younger than I had remembered him looking. There were less wrinkles and worry lines in his face. But he also looked older to me, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders and killing him slowly. I had never seen him this bad off, sure, I saw how life had taken it’s toil on him but he always seemed to put up a good face for me and he never let on how broken he was. It was scary to see.

“What’s wrong Dad?” I turned and was shocked to see that Dean looked different, younger, like fourteen or fifteen years old.

“This must be a memory, in the past.” I said out loud, though I didn’t know why, no one could hear me.

“It’s nothin kid, go back to sleep.” Dad pinched the bridge of his nose and squinted his eyes like he was in pain.

“You’ve been drinking again haven’t you?” Dean did the opposite and walked over to the table.

“Dean would you quit it?” John growled as Dean started checking his eyes. “Go back to bed.”

Dean sighed. “When are you going to tell Sam about Izzy?” By the way Dad’s shoulders tensed I could tell this was a sore subject. I froze when I heard him say my name, I had thought Dean didn’t know anything about me until he met me, but I realized that he had known about me all along.

“Dean, not this again, not now.” Dad looked out the window. And apparently not the first time he’d brought it up.

“Dad! He’s ten years old. If he’s old enough to know about hunting then he’s old enough to know that he has a sister.”

“Dean you know why I can’t tell him about her.”

“I don’t understand why you are being so stubborn!” Dean yelled.

“Because she’s better off without us, without me messing up her life!” Dad yelled back.

 

Then I woke up again in our motel room, tears filling in my eyes. It was Sam’s turn to go get breakfast, he must have already left. I heard Dean in the bathroom taking a shower. I checked the alarm clock on the table and it read 10:00 AM.

I tried to rub the memory out of my head by massaging my temples. Maybe if I pushed hard enough, I could erase it completely. Is that really how Dad thought of me?

“Hey what’s shakin’ bacon?” Dean’s voice made me jump. “Opse, sorry didn’t mean to scare you. Sammy went out to get some food. You looked like you were sleeping pretty good so I decided to let you sleep.” Then he processed my mood. “You okay kid?”

“Why didn’t Dad tell Sam about me?” I looked up at him with bloodshot eyes.

“How do you know about that?” Dean seemed caught off guard by my question so he didn’t try and play it off.

“That doesn’t matter, tell me.”

He sighed and sat down on the bed opposite me. “Bella, it’s… complicated.”

“Dean, our whole lives are one big bowl of complicated.”

“I know, this is just more complicated than the rest.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Whether or not you’ll believe me, Dad was trying to protect you. Keeping you from all of this.”

“Why would he want to keep me away from this?” I couldn’t understand his answer. I couldn’t imagine spending one day without my boys. “Hunting is in my blood, it’s my life.”

“Come on Bella, look around, do you really think that living in cheap motels and eating cheap food is really the way _I_ wanted to spend the rest of my life?” Dean rolled his eyes as he grabbed a beer out of the mini fridge. “I would have given anything to live like you did.”

“You don’t get it.” I looked down and smiled sadly. “I know Dad isn’t ‘father of the year’ material but he’s _my_ dad. I had spent 13 years of my life thinking that he was dead. Then to find out that he was alive after all and that I had two brothers, it meant that I had a second chance at a family, and I also found out that I was good at something, at hunting.”

“Well you are a Winchester.” Dean replied. “You ought to be a damn good one.” I laughed softly as I looked up at him. “Look, if Dad would have let me, all those years ago, I would have come and got you in a heartbeat.”

“I know Dean, you can’t change the past.” I walked over to him and hugged him. “It’s a nice thought though.”

 


	10. Reunion from Hell

**Chapter 9: Reunion from Hell**

We wrapped up Sam’s dream case and then resumed the search for Dad. Towards the end of May our efforts paid off.

We had come to Chicago, Illinois to investigate violent deaths. We were in a bar when Sam spotted a familiar face.

“Meg.” Sam walked over to her and touched her shoulder.

“Sam! Is that you? Oh, my God!” She got up and hugged him. “What are you doing here?”

Sam looked puzzled, as did Dean and I, “I’m just in town, visiting friends.”

“Where are they?” She looked around trying to find them.

“Well, they’re not here right now, but what about you Meg? I thought you were going to California.”

“Oh, I did. I came, I saw, I conquered. Oh, and I met what’s-his-name, something Michael Murray at a bar.”

They reminisced some more, I didn’t know who this chick was, of course it could be someone from Sam’s past that he had met before me but the look on Dean’s face made me think not. He cleared his throat to get Sam’s attention.

“Yeah, um, I’m sorry, Meg. This is my brother Dean and my sister Bella.” Sam introduced us, Meg looked surprised to hear Dean’s name.

“This is Dean?” She smirked.

“So, you’ve heard of me?” Dean flashed his nice guy smile.

“Oh yeah, I’ve heard of you. Nice – the way you treat your brother like luggage.” Meg accused him.

Dean had to restrain me from beating the crap out of her for insulting Dean the way she did.

“And you must be Bella.” Meg smirked. “Sam told me about you too, it’s nice to see that he didn’t spare any details on you either.”

It was plain to see that she was only interested in Sam. They had their own conversation while Dean and I fumed in the background.

“I hate her.” I glowered in their direction.

“You and me both sis.”

Once they were done swapping phone numbers we went back to the motel and Sam came clean.

“I don’t really know who she is. I only met her once. Meeting up with her again? I don’t know, it’s weird.”

“And what was she saying? I treat you like luggage? What, were you bitchin’ about me to some chick?” Dean was still fuming over the awkward intros.

“Now isn’t the time for a family crisis Dean, let’s focus on the task at hand.” I tried to keep him on point.

“Bella’s right, I think there’s something strange going on here.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. She wasn’t even that into me.” Dean sat down on the bed and shook his head.

“Dean!” Sam and I said at the same time. I rolled my eyes. _Idiot…_

_You’re tellin’ me Bella._

_So are you really telling us the truth? Is there anything else I should know about her?_

Sam looked at me and rolled his eyes. _Bella, I promise you, there’s nothing between us. I only met her once, after Dean and I had that huge fight remember?_

 _You two have been in a lot of fights._ But I remembered the one he was talking about, a bus stop in Indiana when Sam wanted to go to California to look for Dad.

We decided to split up, Sam was going to go follow Meg (on the pretense that her appearance wasn’t a coincidence.), and Dean and I went to go look up more info on her and the victims, more to satisfy our rabid curiosity more than anything.

We found out that her ‘story’ checked out, and that the symbol that we found in the apartment of the second victim was a sigil for a demon, a Daeva. They had to be summoned, so someone was pulling the strings somewhere. We all met back up at the motel to discuss what we had found.

“So hot little Meg is summoning the Daeva?” Dean asked.

“I knew there was something off about Malibu Barbie.” I started twisting the knife that Sam had given me on my last birthday. I imagined seeing that smug blonde’s little face every time I took a swipe.

Sam explained the ritual that she was preforming. She was communicating with someone, someone who was giving her orders, someone who was dropping by for a visit.

Dean looked down at the table we had spread out our research onto the table, with the two victim’s records on top. “Holy crap.” He picked up the first victim’s bio.

Both of the victims were from Lawrence, Kansas. Our home town, that’s where everything started, with yellow eyes, with Dad’s crusade. We figured that Meg must have some connection with him. Maybe he was the one who was ‘dropping by’.

This all might end tonight. Dean wanted to go in and interrogate Meg, macho style.

“We can’t just go in guns blazing Dean.” I smacked him on the back of the head. “We have to think about this. We’ve never gone up against a demon before.”

“She’s right. We shouldn’t tip her off. We’ve gotta stake out the warehouse. We’ve got to make sure we know who, or what, is showing up to meet her.”

“Well, one thing’s for sure, we can’t do this alone.” Dean picked up his phone and dialed the same number he had dialed ten times before. I’m sure the buttons are worn down from being used so much, but Dad never responded to our calls. Dean told Dad about the lead, in a voice mail of course, and told him about the warehouse.

Sam and I ransacked the trunk and brought half of it into the motel room.

“Gotta be prepared for anything.” He explained as he shut the trunk lid.

But all our plans were blown to bits when Meg sent the daevas to attack us. It was all a trap to capture us and use us as bait to lure Dad here.

“Oh, sweetheart – you’re dumber than you look. ‘Cause even if Dad was in town, which he’s not, he wouldn’t walk into something like this. He’s too good.” Dean growled at her while he was trying to break his bonds. I was trying to get out as well. _If I ever get out of this… She’s gonna regret the day she met me._

 _Bella, chill, you are no good to us if you are distracted like that._ I looked over to see Sam nod his head slightly and I saw him working to cut the ropes bonding his hands. _Keep her distracted._

“He’s pretty good. I’ll give you that.” Meg walked over to Dean and straddled his legs. “But he has one weakness.”

“The three of us, his weakness is us.” I realized.

“Well, you get a gold star don’t you sweetie.” Meg mocked me. “He lets his guard down around his kids, lets his emotions cloud his judgment. I happen to know he’s in town. And he’ll come and try to save you. And then the Daevas will kill everybody – nice and slow and messy.” She smirked and walked back to the altar.

“Dad’s here?” I let myself hope that he had only stayed away this long to throw off the demons.

“Don’t let her get your hopes up Bella.” Sam’s face turned bitter. “She doesn’t know a thing about Dad. Why are you doing this, Meg? What kind of deal you got worked out here, huh? And with who?”

She tried to spew this crap about loyalty and love, and then started kissing him! I almost vomited from the sight. _That’s gross Sam!_

 _I’m not enjoying it either!_ He spat back.

Dean caused a diversion by pulling out his own knife and letting it clatter to the floor loudly. That gave Sam enough time to cut through the last rope and when she came back to him, he grabbed her and head-butted her. It’s not how I would have handled her but okay.

He ran over to the altar while she was dazed and over turned it. I watched as the shadows of the Daevas appeared and grabbed Meg and slung her through the window, plummeting to her death.

Sam cut us free and we made a run for the motel room and we found that someone was already waiting for us there.

“Hey!” Sam called out as he cut the lights on.

“Dad?” I was stunned. “Dad!” I ran over and hugged him.

“Hey Bella!” He smiled and then turned to Sam and Dean. “Boys.”

 


	11. Mending Fences

**Chapter 10: Mending Fences**

 “Dad it was a trap. I didn’t know, I’m sorry.” Dean apologized. We were sitting down on the beds. I was beside Dad on one bed and Sam and Dean were on the other. I hadn’t let go of him since I hugged him. It had been so long since I had seen him, I breathed in the scent of his worn leather jacket, it still smelled the same as I had remembered it.

“It’s all right. I thought it might’ve been.” Dad rubbed my shoulder.

He told us that he had gotten there in time to see Meg get dropped from the window. He smiled when I said “Serves her right the little bitch.” He also said that the demon had started coming after him.

“Is that why you disappeared?” I asked, hoping for a yes.

“It’s one of the reasons yeah. I didn’t want him to come after you and Dean.” He looked at the two of us; it was like Sam wasn’t there. “It knows that I’m close. It knows I’m gonna kill it. Not just exorcise it or send it back to hell – actually kill it.”

“How?” Dean looked puzzled.

“Yeah, how do you kill a demon?” I had never tangled with one before but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing in the journal that says anything about killing demons. But there isn’t a ‘this is how you kill the monster, save the day and get the girl’ kind of sentence in that thing.

“I’m workin’ on that.”

Sam tried to convince him to let us come with him, a sentiment that we shared. But Dad said that he didn’t want us to get hurt. Then Sam got his chance to reunite with Dad, but it was cut short by the daevas coming in and attacking us. We were getting our butts handed to us until Sam lit some flares. Making them vanish.

We were all fumbling around blind from the flares, coughing and gasping for air.

“Dad!” Dean called out.

“Over here!” John responded.

We both made our way over to Dad and we helped him up. Sam had the good sense to pick up the bag of weapons and followed us out of the room. When we got out to the car Dean brought all my hopes crashing down.

“Dad, you can’t come with us.” He announced abruptly.

“What? What are you talking about?” Sam asked.

“Yeah Dean, did those flares fry some of your brain cells!” I almost yelled at him. “We just spent all this time to find him and you don’t want him to come with us?”

Dean explained that Meg was right; Dad is vulnerable when he’s around us, and we had to separate. Sam and I protested me more so than Sam, but Dad agreed.

“Dad! Please don’t go!” Tears started filling in my eyes. “I need you, we need you!”

“Bella I can’t –” Dad sighed, trying to find the words. “Don’t cry baby. This fight is just starting. And we are all gonna have a part to play. For now, you’ve got to trust me. You’ve got to let me go.”

With trembling hands I finally let go and stepped towards Dean. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Hey kid?” Dad walked over to me, he put his finger under my chin and lifted my head. “No tears, you are a Winchester.” He smiled but it didn’t touch his eyes, he was just as upset as I was, but he had it under control.

I nodded my head and tried to stop the tears. But it was too late to stop now. I buried my face in Dean’s jacket so Dad wouldn’t see. It didn’t smell the same as Dad’s did. It smelled like beer, women and someone else’s blood.

I sat in the back of the car and put my headphones in and ransacked through my cd’s and found a green day cd and popped it in. I refused to talk to Dean, he had ruined my life. We had spent so much time looking for Dad and then he just sends him away? He’s such an ass!

Sam wasn’t all that happy either, but he was taking it better than me. He didn’t have a good relationship with Dad, I know, but I thought he should have been a little more understanding.

After Illinois we did what we always do, find more things to hunt. We crashed through Texas and while Dean and Sam, and me towards the end, had a little prank war we shut down a haunted house that was created by an internet audience, our first encounter with Craig and Ed. Talk about two characters….

Then we got a heads up about a case in Wisconsin, the town was plagued by a Shtriga, a nasty little thing that Sam and Dean had dealt with before. Then a short trip up to New York brought us a haunted painting that murdered its owners.

And then we come to probably one of my favorite cases: the vampires. While we were scanning the local papers and the internet for leads on cases Dean found an obituary for a hunter that Dad had mentioned in his journal. We packed up the impala and headed for Manning, Colorado.

When we went to the guy’s cabin it had been trashed. The police claimed that it was a bear attack; it sure looked like one if it wasn’t. Upon closer inspection we found salt lining the doors and the windows. This guy was defiantly a hunter, Sam found a journal just like Dad’s except it went back into the ’60s.

Then Dean found some scratches on the floor and took a piece of paper from the desk and took a rubbing of the scratches, turns out that it was a mail drop, just like Dad and I do.

We headed into town to the only post office and retrieved what was inside, an envelope with J.W. on it.

“‘J.W.’ You think? John Winchester?” Sam shrugged as we got back in the car.

“I don’t know. Should we open it?” Dean started fiddling with the envelope.

We all jumped when someone knocked on the window of the impala. After I recovered from my mini heart attack I smiled. Dad smiled back.

“Thank you for scaring the crap out of us Dad.” I punched him when he opened my door. I moved over so that he could get in the back.

“You’re welcome kid.” He winked at me. “It’s what I do.”

He explained to us that he had heard about his friend dying and came to investigate. He followed us to his house and then followed us to the post office.

“I should probably take a look at that.” He took the letter from Dean and started reading. “‘If you’re reading this, I’m already dead’… that son of a bitch.”

After Dad stopped asking us seemingly random questions he told us his why Mr. Elkins was killed for a gun, and who did it.

“They were what Daniel Elkins killed best: Vampires.”

“Vampires?” I questioned. “I thought there was no such thing.”

“Yeah, you never mentioned them before.” Sam shared in my disbelief.

“I thought they were extinct. I thought Elkins and others had wiped them out. I was wrong.”

He told us that most of the myths about vampires were wrong, crosses, sunlight and steaks don’t affect them. The only way to kill them is by ripping their heads off. Otherwise the stories were true. They needed human blood to survive and they can blend in and look just like everyone else, and once they have your scent, they have it for life.

Later, after two huge fights between Sam and Dad, he finally told us what was so important about this gun; supposedly it could kill anything, even yellow eyed demons.

Our first attempt to retrieve the gun crashed and burned. We barely made it out alive. Then it was back to the drawing board. Dad sent Dean off to a funeral home to get a dead man’s blood; it was poisonous to vampires, who knew right?

He made me and Sam stay behind.

“Why can’t I go with Dean?” I protested, something ugly was going to go down between the two of them and I didn’t want to be anywhere near ground zero when it happened.

“Because I need you here, I haven’t spent enough time with you.” He ruffled my hair.

Sam was pacing the floors. Dean had only been gone for 20 minutes. “It shouldn’t be taking this long. I should go help.” He went for the door.

“Dean’s got it.” Dad seemed totally at ease sitting at the table, looking at Mr. Elkins’ journal. He looked up then and noticed Sam’s pacing. “Sammy?”

“Yeah?” Sam wasn’t paying attention to him; he was watching the window waiting for Dean to come back.

“I don’t think I ever told you this but…” He looked between the two of us. “the day the two of you were born you know what I did?”

“What?” I asked.

“I put $100 into a savings account for each of you. I did the same thing for your brother.” Sam stopped pacing and came to join us at the table. “It was a college fund. And every month, I’d put another $100 until… anyway my point is Sam that, this is never the life that I wanted for you.”

“Is that why you left me with Charlie?” I tried to keep my emotions in check.

“Yeah, I figured if you didn’t know about hunting then you would grow up normal.”

I rolled my eyes. “Normal is overrated.” He laughed.

“Then why did you get so mad at me when I left?” Sam’s face was set in a mask of irritation.

 _Don’t be such a pre-Madonna Sam!_ I told him.

_This is between me and Dad Bella._

“You gotta understand something. After your mother passed all I saw was evil, everywhere. And all I cared about was keeping you kids alive. I sent Bella away because at the time I thought that was what would keep her safe, though afterwards I realized that I had left her defenseless. I wanted you… prepared. Ready. Except somewhere along the line I… uh… I stopped being your father and I… I became your drill sergeant. So when you said that you wanted to go away to school, all I could think about, my only thought was, that you were gonna be alone. Vulnerable. Sammy it just...it never occurred to me what you wanted. I just couldn't accept the fact that you and me were just… different.”

Then Sam laughed and told him that they were more alike than he realized and explained what happened with Jessica.

“Hey Dad? Whatever happened to that college fund?” Sam asked afterwards.

Dad grinned and said. “I spent it on ammo.”

It seemed like for a few minutes that both sides were waving the white flag in a truce. We all laughed as Dean came in. He had gotten the blood and Dad sat us down to explain the plan. We were going to use the blood to catch one of the vampires to draw out the leader. We were going to trade the captive for the gun. Then the peace treaty between Dad and Sam came to an end. He still wanted us to get out of town when we captured the vampire.

Dean agreed with Dad, to the point that Sam almost got into a fist fight with him, but later explained that while Dad was bargaining for the colt we would go back to the nest and rescue the captives and kill the vampires to show Dad that we could handle ourselves.

It was fun raiding the nest and killing the vamps. It felt good to be included in the fight this time. Even though I was 23 years old, the same age as my twin, they still treated me like I was a kid. I know they are protecting me, but they have no right to argue with me since Dad treated them the same way.

Then we went to the meeting spot and helped Dad take out the leader. We distracted the leader so that Dad could grab the colt. It was a little dicey when the leader grabbed me and nearly took a hunk of my neck off. Dean picked up his machete and was about to go after him when he spoke

“Don’t! Or I’ll break her pretty little neck. Put the blade down.”

Dean didn’t move to do anything. So the leader tightened the grip around my neck, cutting my air supply off completely. Dean dropped the machete and put his hands in the air.

“You people. Why can’t you leave us alone? We have as much right to live as you do.”

“I don’t think so.” Dad’s voice came from behind us. The vampire spun me around and looked at Dad. “Now take your filthy hands off my daughter you son of a bitch!” he was holding the colt and fired. The bullet went straight into his skull, a sigil appeared where the bullet went in and he stumbled, letting me go. I ran over to Dad and watched as a flash of light illuminated the vampire’s skeleton and fell to his knees, dead.

The remaining vampires retreated and left us in the street.

 


	12. Salvation

**Chapter 11: Salvation**

From that case on we hunted together as a family, the way it should be.

Dad was finally on board with us helping him kill Yellow Eyes, so he had been showing us his research from the last 20 years. He told us about the trail he followed and the signs that pointed to where he was going to strike next. All signs pointed to Salvation, Iowa.

Sam and Dean went out to get food, but I knew they wanted to give me and Dad some time alone. _Thanks Sam. Tell Dean I said thanks too._ I told Sam. He just smiled at me in return and shut the door to the motel.

I looked at Dad; he was studying maps and the scattered papers lying on the table. After a few minutes he turned to look at me.

“I thought you would have gone out with the boys’ kid.” Dad said as he went back to studying his papers. No one else knows this, in fact he made me swear that I wouldn’t tell a soul, but he has to wear reading glasses. The only reason I know about it was that I made him get them. ‘Come on Bella! These make me look old!’ He was wearing them now; he looked so different with them on. Not like he looked older as he claimed but like he looked like he did I had talked with him the first time.

It was so much easier talking to John Winchester than with Dad. John Winchester was so happy that he had found his daughter again. He hid his grief and pain so well that it was hard to believe that he had a care in the world. Dad on the other hand was stern and unsympathetic. So I had to put myself in that mindset, I was just talking to John.

“Well, I have been accused of spending too much time with Dean so….” I smirked.

John smirked back. “Yeah, that boy isn’t the sharpest lure in the tackle box huh?”

“He might be the prettiest though.” I joined him over at the table.

“Nah, he’s just cocky, that’s a good skill to have.” He replied. “Though I think one of these days that’s gonna kill him.”

We sat in silence at the world ‘kill’.

“Hey kid?” John asked softly.

“Yeah?”

“If things… go south… If we actually find yellow eyes….”

“Hey don’t talk like that.” I shook my head. “We are going to get it, and if not, we’ll be with mom. It’s a win, win.”

I couldn’t believe that I could talk so calmly about my own death. Being a hunter meant that a few things in life were true: there’s evil in the world, whether you turn a blind eye to it or not, you can always count on family, and you can only live for the moment. You can’t have hopes and dreams; you can’t plan the future out past the next few days. You just have to go with your gut and hope for the best then when your time comes due, you hope that you have done enough.

“I’m not so sure that I’ll be with your mom.”

“Why would you say that?”

“I’ve done some things I’m not proud of Bell.” He took of his glasses. “I lost your mother, gave you up, I’ve gambled and drank away all the money that I had promised to you guys. I haven’t given you the education that you deserve. I’m… I’m not proud of the last 22 years of my life, but I wouldn’t change them.” he paused. “You want to know why?” I shook my head. “Because if I hadn’t lived them, I would never have found you again. I never would have gotten to spend this much time with you and the boys. We wouldn’t have each other.”

I hugged him as I started crying. Then we heard the door open and Dean came waltzing in the door with a white fast food bag.

“Jeez Bella, kill the water works. We were only a few minutes late.” He rolled his eyes as he offered the bag as a piece offering.

I ran over to him and punched him in the arm as I grabbed the bag out of his hand.

Dad sent Sam and I out searching for birth records at a medical center hopping we could predict which house the demon would strike next. Sam had another vision of the demon’s next target.

“We have to call Dean and Dad.” Sam picked up the phone and started dialing.

“Are you crazy?!” I pulled the phone out of his hand. “What are you going to tell him?”

“Uh, the demon is going to kill these people?” Sam replied sarcastically.

“And how are you going to tell him exactly?” I mimicked Sam’s voice. “‘Hey Dad, I had a vision of the demon and I know where he’s gonna strike next?’”

“Bella, if this could save these people, and most importantly, kill this thing, I will deal with Dad when it’s over.”

I sighed and handed him his phone back. I was right, Dad wasn’t pleased about us keeping Sam’s abilities a secret. Thankfully, Sam hadn’t ratted me out about my visions of the past. Dad and Dean arrived later and we started staking out the young families home. Then Sam got an unexpected phone call.

“Hello? Who is this?” Sam answered; his face went from confusion to hatred. “Meg.”

We all looked at Sam. How could she still be alive? We all saw her fall seven stories to her death. She wanted to talk to Dad. Sam tried to play it off like he wasn’t with Dad but she insisted. She revealed that she was the one that had killed Reverend Murphy, one of Dad’s close friends, and now she was at another friend’s house Caleb. I didn’t really know much about Caleb, Sam and Dean considered him to be almost family which was good enough for me.

She wanted to make a deal, she was going to kill every single person that had ever helped us in any way unless Dad gave up the Colt. When he refused, she slit Caleb’s throat.

Dad agreed to meet her in Lincoln at midnight to give her the colt. The boys and I were adamant about just handing the gun over; we might as well call it quits now. But Dad told us that he had a plan: he wanted to use a substitute gun, because Meg, who we assumed was possessed by a demon, doesn’t know what the gun looks like. Then we would split up, Dad would go to Lincoln with the fake, and the three of us would go to Salvation, kill Yellow Eyes and finally end this crusade. To finish the job that Dad started.

On our end it was mostly boring, I found out everything about this family, the husband left for work at 8:30 and came back at 5, the wife stayed at home with the baby, when the husband came home they enjoyed a quiet family meal and then watched television. I wondered in the back of my mind if this is what our house looked like all those years ago. I had the feeling that Dean was sharing my sentiments.

 _Yea I think your right._ Sam smiled at me. _I think we were normal, before that night._

I smiled; _I’m so ready for this to be over. I want to be normal again._

_I don’t think we have a normal anymore Bella._

A few hours later, it started. Sam picked the lock on the front door and we raced in. Dean got tripped up by the husband who heard us breaking in and tried to go up against our guns with a baseball bat. Dean got the baseball bat from him and backed him against the wall and held the bat to his throat. The husband tried to warn the wife that we were coming, but Dean backhanded him, knocking him unconscious, and then Dean carried him out of the house. Sam and I ran to the little girl’s room, if anyone was going to kill this thing, it was going to be the two of us. We reached the top of the stairs and Sam, holding the colt, ran in. As soon as he walked into the room he froze.

I was afraid at first, he was very terrifying to behold. He looked like a normal human, one head, two arms, two legs the usual, the only thing that looked different was his eyes they were pale yellow.

“Sam! Shoot him now!” I yelled, I tried to stick to what Dean said, it’s just another job. I looked up and the mother was on the ceiling. I could only imagine mom being up there. “Sam!”

Sam raised the colt and pulled the trigger, but the demon disappeared into smoke and the mother dropped to the floor, screaming.

“Where the hell did it go?!” Sam growled as he pointed the colt in all directions.

“Does it matter?” I screamed back, I ran over to the mother and helped her up.

“My baby!” She cried as we walked over to the crib. I picked her up just before the crib exploded into flames.

Half of the house was engulfed in flames as we all raced out of the house. We made sure everyone was safe before we turned back to the house. We had failed; we didn’t kill the yellow eyed demon, who knows what happened with Dad. It all seemed hopeless. I looked up into the nursery window, there was a silhouetted man standing completely still, Sam noticed him too.

“It’s still in there!”

“Sam!” I yelled. Dean tackled him and held him to the ground.

“Dean! Let me go, it’s still in there!” Sam started struggling against Dean.

“No. It’s burning to the ground, its suicide.” Dean turned a pleading eye to me and I ran over to help him.

“I don’t care!” Sam continued to struggle.

“Well we do!” I slapped Sam. “So stop acting like an idiot!”

There was nothing more that we could do, the demon had disappeared and the house was burned to a crisp. Once the police showed up, and we laid down a false story, we headed back to the hotel.

Dean had been trying to get in touch with Dad ever since we got back. Sam was pouting in the corner because we had stopped him from getting himself killed.

“Something’s wrong.” Dean hung up the phone. I looked down at my lap, trying not to get too freaked out; I had to keep my head in the game. Sam stared at the wall. He hadn’t spoken since we got into the car. “You hear me? Something’s wrong.”

“If you had just let me go in there, I could have ended all this.” Sam muttered.

“Sam.” I groaned and rolled my eyes. “Now isn’t the time to think about what might have happened.”

“Yeah Sam, the only thing you would have ended was your life.”

“You don’t know that.” Sam pointed out.

“Sam, we don’t know what would have happened, it doesn’t matter.” I walked over to him and rubbed his back soothingly.

“It does matter Bella, I’m just as ready for this to be over as you are.”

“So what, you’re just willing to sacrifice yourself, is that it?” Dean walked over to the bed.

“Dean you are not helping!” I growled at him.

“Yeah. Yeah you’re damn right I am.” Sam pushed himself off the bed and knocked me over.

“Well that’s not going to happen, not as long as I’m around.”

“Stop it, this isn’t getting us anywhere!” I tried to pull them apart.

“What the hell are you talking about Dean? We’ve been searching for this demon for our whole lives. It’s the only thing we’ve ever cared about.”

“Sam I wanna waste it. I do. Okay?” Dean sighed as he finally let go of Sam. “But it’s not worth dying over.”

“What?” I used Sam’s confusion to push him back.

“I mean it. If hunting this demon means getting yourself killed then I hope we never find the damn thing.” Dean looked at the two of us. I knew what he was saying; I didn’t want us to hunt anything that was going to get us killed. Our family was more important to me than anything.

“That thing killed Jess. THAT THING KILLED MOM!” Sam growled in anger.

“You said yourself once, that no matter what we do, they’re gone, and they’re never coming back.” Dean scowled.

I had to duck and back out of the way because Sam went into a fit of rage and shoved Dean up against the wall harshly.

“Don’t you say that, not you! Not after all this don’t you say that!”

“Would you two stop it?!” I yelled. “I’m sick of listening to the two of you bicker back and forth!”

But instead of blowing up in Sam’s face, Dean’s face calmed and he spoke softly. “Sam look. The four of us… that’s all we have… and that’s all I have. Sometimes I feel like I’m barely holding it together man… and without you or Dad…”

“Dad.” Sam spat back bitterly. He let Dean go and walked across the room. Dean tried to calm himself down by taking deep breaths. He started to continue the argument but I stepped in his way.

“Let him calm down, you don’t want to say something you might regret later.”

Sam looked out the window for a few minutes, composing himself, then he turned to face us. With tears in his eyes he said. “He should have called by now. Try him again.”

My blood ran cold as Dean started talking to Meg.

_I thought that bitch was dead!_

_So did I…_ Sam looked darkly at the phone in Dean’s hand.

“Where is he?” Dean looked like he wanted to smash the phone against the wall.

She promised that we would never see Dad again.

 


	13. Exercising, the Demon Way

**Chapter 12: Exercising, the Demon Way**

We ran out to the car, threw our stuff into the trunk and speed off. I wanted the pleasure of killing Meg myself. No body screws with my family and lives to brag about it. But of course, Sam wanted to do the exact opposite of what we wanted to do. He wanted the demon to come and get us so that we could kill it. But Dean made the executive decision to go get Dad.

“I’m telling you we could have taken him.” Sam stared out the window bitterly.

“Sam, let’s keep the idiot plans to one a day ok?” I rolled my eyes, _right now is not the time to be a hero._

_Bella, you don’t get it, stay out of this!_

“What we need is a plan. Now, they’re probably keeping Dad alive, we just gotta figure out where. They’re gonna trade him for the gun.” Sam shook his head and laughed. “What?”

“Dean, if that were true, why didn’t Meg mention a trade?” Sam’s breathing hitched and he continued. “Dad, he might be….”

“Don’t!” Dean and I yelled. The last thing we wanted to think about was that we might be too late, just like she said.

“Look, I don’t want to believe it any more than you. But if he is, all the more reason to kill this damn thing. We still have the colt, we can still finish the job.”

“Screw the job, Sam!” Dean mouthed off.

“Dean, I’m just trying to do what he would want. He would want us to keep going.”

Tears stung in my eyes. “Stop talking about Dad like he’s already dead!” I yelled my broken sobs filling the car; I tried to contain my ragged gasps for air and quiet down.

“Everything stops until we get him back.” Dean muttered.

We drove all night and half the day to a small junk yard. There were scrap heaps scattered here and there and hubcaps were nailed to the side of the house. A huge dog was chained to a post and was lying on the hood of an old tow truck. It was an old friend of Dad’s, Bobby Singer. I was a baby when I met him so I don’t remember much about him but I liked him already when we walked through the door.

“What are you doing here you idgits?”

“Hey to you to Bobby.” Dean smirked as he walked in.

“We have a little problem.” Sam followed behind. I was the last to walk in; Bobby nearly fainted at the sight of me.

“Isabella?” Bobby guessed.

“I prefer Bella actually.” I blushed.

“You can sometimes get away with Izzy too.” I heard Dean from the kitchen.

Bobby rolled his eyes. “Don’t pay attention to that idgit.” He walked over and hugged me tightly. “You’ve gotten big on me! Of course, you were just a baby when I saw you last.”

“It’s good to see you too.” I awkwardly hugged him back.

Sam walked to the office and started pulling books off the shelf. I stood there with Dean and Bobby discussing what we knew and what to do next. Bobby grabbed two silver flasks with crosses on them and handed one to Dean and I.

“Here you go.”

“What is this – holy water?” Dean opened the cap and sniffed it.

“That one is.” Bobby smirked. He brought out two more flasks. “This is whiskey.”

Dean admitted that he was unsure about coming; the last time that Dad came to visit Bobby threatened to shoot him. But Bobby said that it was all water under the bridge. Sam got our attention and told us about a book that he had found. It was a book on devils traps.

We had just concocted a plan to trap yellow eyes.

While we were making the trap for practice, Bobby also mentioned the massive number of demon possessions. The dog started barking outside, we all went to our weapons of choice. Bobby started walking over to the window and the dog’s barking’s subsided and was replaced by whining.

“Something’s wrong.” Bobby gripped his gun tighter.

Then the front door busted open and Meg is standing at the threshold. Dean went for the holy water flask.

“No more crap okay?” She strolled in like she owned the place. Dean unscrewed the cap but Meg smacked him and sent him flying into a stack of books.

“Dean?!” I cried out, he was knocked out for the count. Sam held me back from going over to check on him. _Stay right here, don’t move._ Bobby cocked his gun and put himself between us and her.

She rolled her eyes and grimaced. “I want the colt, Sam – the _real_ colt – right now.”

“We don’t have it on us. We buried it.” Sam told a bald faced lie.

 _What are you doing?_ I still couldn’t figure out his plan.

_Just follow my lead._

“Didn’t I say ‘no more crap’?” Then she went into this long winded rant about how she was so unimpressed by the Winchesters and we were stupid to think she wouldn’t find us.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Dean shuffling across the floor. I got it now, Dean was going to push her towards the trap, but we needed to distract her.

“We are Winchesters you demonic bitch, who says we didn’t want to be found?” I smirked as Dean showed up behind her. She looked up to the ceiling and saw the symbol we etched there.

“Gotcha.” Dean grinned.

We found out that Meg was actually a girl possessed by a demon, and that the injuries that she had gotten in Chicago would kill her if the demon leaves her body.

“Does that matter?” I glared at the demon. “She’s gonna pay for everything she’s said and done.”

“Bella, there’s a chance we could save her if we exorcise the demon.”

“I want her to suffer!” I yelled, tears pooling in my eyes.

Meg clicked her tongue, “My, my, what a temper you have little girl.” She smiled. “If you weren’t trying to kill me I might actually like you.”

“Shut up you –” I started to punch her but Sam restrained me.

“Easy Bella!” Sam reached out to me with his mind. _She’s not worth it, trust me, I know how much you want to gank her._

Bobby had salted all the doors and windows while Dean interrogated Meg. I tried to keep my emotions in check; she was hitting way below the belt a few times.

 _Are you ok?_ Sam checked on me.

 _Just peachy thanks._ I growled. _I’ll be ok when that demon’s blood is spilled all over the floor._

It was intense for a few minutes when she said that Dad was dead, Sam made Dean stop when he slapped her. We left Bobby to watch her as we went in the other room.

“She’s lying. He’s not dead.” Dean fumed.

“Dean, you got to be careful with her. Don’t hurt her.” Sam cautioned.

“Sam, she toyed with us!” I growled in irritation. “She messed with your head, she sent those things after us, she has tarnished Mom’s memory, don’t you want her dead?”

“Bella, you know I do, but there’s a chance to save this girl, an innocent girl.”

I looked back at the girl; she was staring at the three of us. I handed Sam the book that he found the devils trap in, it also had an exorcism ritual. Sam looked at Dean, who looked back at him, and they moved over to her. They started exorcising her unless she told us the truth about where Dad was. Sam started reading, she writhed and screamed in pain, and I enjoyed hearing every sound that escaped her mouth. She kept saying that he was dead and Dean just wouldn’t accept it.

She finally let it slip that he wasn’t dead and that he was in Jefferson City Missouri, but she didn’t know anything else. Dean told Sam finish the ritual, when he didn’t Dean confronted him. Sam said she could still be useful, but Dean argued that there was an innocent girl that was trapped in her own body. Bobby reminded us that we dropped her seven stories to the cement below so there was no way that the human could have survived.

“We’re gonna put her out of her misery.” Dean told Bobby. “Sam, finish it.” Sam didn’t know what to do; he looked between the three of us and at Meg. “Finish it!”

“Dominicos sanctae ecclesiae, terogamus audi nos, terribilis deus do sanctuario suo deus israhel. Ipse tribuite virtutem et fortitudinem plebi suae, benedictus deus, gloria patri....”

Meg threw her head back and screamed, black smoke shot out of her mouth and spread out in the protective circle in the ceiling before disappearing. The girl leaned forward in the chair and blood started dripping from her mouth. We stood quietly, not sure if it was over or not, but she raised her head slowly.

“She’s still alive.” Dean smiled. “Bobby call 911, Bella get some water and blankets.”

I slowly walked out of the room and retrieved the items he asked for. When I came back I wordlessly hand them to Dean and Sam was asking her questions.

“Where is the demon we’re looking for?”

“Not there.” She whispered, through labored breaths. “Other ones. Awful ones.”

“Where are they keeping our Dad?” Sam pressed her for more information.

“By the river. Sunrise.” She gasped out. Sam asked her what sunrise meant but she was already gone.

 

 


	14. Three Little Bullets

**Chapter 13: Three Little Bullets**

We left Bobby to deal with the paramedics; I hope he could come up with a convincing story. We were driving at top speed to Jefferson City. We figured out what Meg’s dying words meant Sunrise Apartments. Sam was complaining about killing the demon, I knew Dad would have wanted us to do that but I agreed with Dean, you don’t turn your back on family.

Firemen were already on the scene responding to a 911 call, so we stole some suits to enter the building without attracting attention, after that it was easy to take out the demons possessing humans that were guarding Dad. We managed to get him out but Sam wanted to test him with holy water. He splashed some on him and it had no effect. It was a good idea, but we were running out of time. We got him outside and one demon we missed attacked us. Without a second thought Dean raised the colt and fired it at his head, there were two bullets left.

We drove as far away from Sunrise Apartments as fast as we could and came to a small cabin tucked away in the woods. The fact that the driveway was so overgrown told us that no one had been home for a while. Sam laid Dad down on the cot and we started salting the doors and windows. Sam’s face was bloody and swollen from the demons we had to kill. Dean came into the room and asked how Dad was I was dabbing his face with an old rag that I had found and some rain water outside, it wasn’t much but it was all I could do.

“You know that guy I shot? There was a person in there.” Dean sat the colt on the table and stared at it.

“You didn’t have a choice, Dean.” Sam replied.

“It’s not your fault.” I agreed.

“Yeah, I know, that’s not what bothers me.”

“Then what does?” Sam came over and sat at the table with Dean.

“Killing that guy, killing Meg. I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t even flinch. For you guys or Dad, the things I’m willing to do or kill, it’s just, uh.... it scares me sometimes.” Dean looked down at his hands and then rubbed his eyes. Sam and I didn’t know what to say to that. Dad came in then and told Dean that he should be proud of what he does for the family. I ran over and hugged him, but Dean was suspicious. He pointed the colt right at Dad’s forehead.

“Dean? What are you doing?!” I hissed at him.

“He’d be furious.” Dean showed no hesitation, he was really going to shoot Dad.

_Sam? Do something!_

“You are not my Dad.” Dean replied as he cocked the colt.

Sam, instead of helping me out, defended Dean! He had this crackpot theory about Dad being possessed.

“Fine. You’re both so sure, go ahead. Kill me.” Dad released me and held his arms open wide and closed his eyes ready for the kill shot.

“Dean?! Don’t do it!” I stood in front of Dad protectively.

“Bella get out of the way!” Dean’s hand trembled a little bit.

Sam glared at me. _Bella that’s not Dad, get away from him!_

“I thought so.” Dad grinned and opened his eyes. I turned in horror to see that they were pale yellow.

Sam lunged forward at the same time I was tossed aside by an invisible force and was slung into a wall that knocked the breath out of me. I tried to move but I was pinned to the wall, Dad was right, this thing was one tough s.o.b.

I looked to see Sam and Dean pined to the walls as well and Dean had dropped the colt. The demon went over and picked it up. Sam was trying to fight against the force pinning him to the wall. The demon laughed.

“I’m gonna kill you!” Sam growled.

“Oh, that’d be a neat trick. In fact, here.” the demon placed the gun down on the table. “Make that gun float to you there, psychic boy!”

We both had psychic powers, we had developed them when we met the first person that was like us, there have been many more that we’ve meet and our powers have grown. But his powers failed him as he couldn’t make the gun move an inch. I tried as well sweat beaded on my forehead as I concentrated, but I had the same result.

The demon mentioned that Sam was about to propose to Jessica, something that he hadn’t told us, just before she died. He said that she was in the way of his plans for Sam, me, and the rest of the children like us. Sam’s face was tormented by the revelation; the fact that she was gone was going to haunt him for the rest of his life. Dean drew the demon’s attention away from Sam, sparing him the guilt and the demon started torturing him, using his psychic powers to make him bleed internally. Dean pleaded with Dad to make it stop but the blood kept spreading out over his shirt. He finally passed out.

“STOP IT, PLEASE!” I cried out in anguish at the tortured sounds of my brother dying. The demon turned on me and I immediately felt the sensation of white hot pokers boiling in my stomach and chest. I cried out in pain, it was much more intense than any other pain I had felt. I was gasping for air and tried to make out Dad’s form through my blurred vision caused by the tears spilling over. “Daddy… please! Make… him… stop!”

Dad’s eyes turned normal again. “Stop.” He whispered. “Stop it.” He had regained control long enough to free me I went for the colt and had it trained on Dad’s face, I tried to wipe the tears from my eyes as I contemplated what I was about to do next. The demon had taken back control and was smirking at me.

“You kill me, you kill Daddy.” He pointed out.

The gun trembled in my hands, could I do it, could I really kill my own father? After all the times we had spent together, the good and the bad, and from what he told me about not going to be with mom in heaven. I just couldn’t do it, “I know.” I fired the gun, shooting him in the leg and Dad collapsed. One bullet left.

Sam was freed from the wall and we both rushed over to Dean.

“Dean?” I cradled his head in my lap.

Sam checked out his chest. “Oh God, he’s lost a lot of blood.” Then he turned to me, I looked down, my shirt wasn’t as bad as his. “Are you ok?”

“I’m fine; we have to get them to a hospital.” I was shaking so bad that to me, the whole room was shaking.

Dean moaned softly and his eyelids trembled a bit. “Where’s Dad?”

“He’s right here, Dean.” Sam assured him.

“Go check on him.” He croaked out.

“Dean.” Sam protested.

“Go check on him.” He said a little louder.

“Dean it’s going to be ok, I promise.” I ran my hands through his hair to try and soothe him.

I whipped my head in Sam’s direction when I heard Dad tell him to shoot him in the heart.

“Do it now!” Dad cried out.

“Sam don’t!” I cried out.

“You’ve gotta hurry! I can’t hold onto it much longer! You shoot me son! Shoot me! Son, I’m begging you! We can end this here and now! Sammy!”

“Sam, no.” Dean tried to get up, but he was too weak, he collapsed back onto my lap.

Then black smoke poured out of Dad’s mouth just like it did with Meg and disappeared through the floor.

Sam cussed, then said, “Come on Bella, we have to help them to the car.” He picked up Dad and left me to get Dean. Dad was still conscious, but suffering from a bullet wound, he was able to half walk to the car. Dean on the other hand was nothing more than dead weight.

“Come on Dean! Help me out here.” I struggled under his weight, why did he have to be so much bigger than me? “You have got to lay off the Philly cheese dogs!”

“Shut… up…” I heard him mutter weakly as he struggled to get on his feet.

Sam came back in and helped me carry him out to the car. We got in the car next, I was in the back with Dean, and Sam was driving with Dad in the passenger seat. Dad was clutching his leg in pain, and Dean had passed out again and was slumped over.

“Look, just hold on, alright. The hospital’s only ten minutes away.” Sam started the car and sped off.

“I’m so sorry Dad.” I started crying, the gravity of what we just went through came crashing down on me.

“It is okay kid; you gave me the time I needed to hold him off.” Dad glared at Sam through the pain, he was mad that Sam hadn’t taken the shot when he had the chance. “I’m surprised at you, Sammy. Why didn’t you kill it? I thought we saw eye-to-eye on this? Killing this demon comes first – before me, before anything.”

“Dad, how can you say that? I couldn’t kill you when I had a shot.”

“Well at least you shot me, Sam couldn’t even do that.”

Sam growled. “Look, we’ve still got the Colt. We still have the one bullet left. We just have to -start over, alright? I mean, we already found the demon–” His words were cut off by the sounds of metal scraping each other and a blinding flash of light.

I can’t remember what happened next; actually the next few days were kinda fuzzy. The next thing I remembered was a nurse coming into my room and told me what happened.

“Oh good, you’re finally awake.” She smiled at me, as she checked my vitals.

“What – what happened?” My thoughts were clouded, I couldn’t really think clearly. It must have been the morphine coursing through me.

“Honey, you and your family were in a terrible accident.” She looked at me with that look that said ‘your family is dying and I could care less’.

The heart monitor went crazy as I tried to get up. “What?! Is my Dad okay? My brothers?”

“Honey, please, you need to rest.” She replied, pushing me back into the bed. “Your father is alright, he has a gunshot wound that is treatable. Sam is alright, he only has minor cuts and scrapes.”

“And Dean?” I managed to choke out through tears.

Her professional mask cracked a little and said, “I’m afraid that he’s not doing so well, he suffered a lot of blood loss and is in a coma.”

I think the whole entire hospital could hear my scream.

 


	15. My Soul to Take

**Chapter 14: My Soul to Take**

I couldn’t sleep that night, every time I would close my eyes I would see images of what had happened. Sam came in around six the next morning to check on me.

“I thought I had lost you Bella.” He sighed as he gave me a bone crushing hug.

“Sam? I can’t breathe!” I mumbled as his hair tickled my nose.

“Oh right, sorry.” Sam laughed in relief. “It’s so good to see you awake.”

The same nurse that delivered my soul-shattering news with a fake smile came in and rolled her eyes, it was obvious that she didn’t like me.

“Honey, your discharge papers are up at the desk, you can leave as soon as you are ready.”

“Thank you.” Sam smiled at her.

She dipped her head and started to walk out the door.

“Ma’am?” I called sweetly, she turned around. “If you call me ‘honey’ one more time, I swear I’m gonna rip your head off.”

She glared at me and stormed off.

“Bella, you could be a little nicer.” Sam sighed. _Same old Bella huh?_

“Shut up moose.” I rolled my eyes. “What happened, I mean what _really_ happened.”

He sat down on the bed beside me. “There was an eighteen wheeler that slammed into the impala. I wasn’t badly hurt so I woke up just in time to see the driver get out of the truck and come near us. I got the Colt out and pretended to be knocked out. When he came closer I trained the gun on him. His eyes turned black and then the demon left him. The truck driver started freaking out and called the police.”

“Where’s the car?” I asked then added _did the police get a look in the trunk?_

“I called Bobby; he came and picked it up.”

“What about Dean and Dad? I have to go and see them.”

“Dad’s gonna pull through, the worse thing he got was that bullet wound. Dean got the worst of it; it hit mostly on his side. When I woke up I noticed that he was lying on top of you. All three of you were unconscious, I was afraid that…” Sam’s breathing hitched.

“It’s ok Sam, were ok.” I hugged him tightly.

Sam discharged me and we went down to Dean’s room. I started to cry as I saw him lying in the bed, it was almost as if he was sleeping, but he wasn’t breathing on his own, he had a clear tube going down his throat doing the breathing for him. I turned into Sam who held me as I started crying.

The doctor entered then and let us know that Dad was awake.

“Doc, what about our brother?” Sam asked before he could leave.

“Well, he sustained serious injury: blood loss, contusions to his liver and kidney, the multiple glass lacerations to his back. But it’s the head trauma that I’m worried about. There’s early signs of cerebral edema.”

“What can we do?” I managed to choke out.

“Well, we won’t know his full condition until he wakes up. If he wakes up.”

“If?” Sam’s voice sounded hollow.

“I have to be honest; most people with this degree of injury wouldn’t have survived this long. He’s fighting very hard. But you need to have realistic expectations.”

“Shut up!” I cried out in anger. “You don’t know anything about him! He’s going to make it!”

“Bella!” Sam grabbed me; I was going to punch the guy for saying something like that about Dean. _Let’s not add assault of a doctor onto our growing list of felonies._

“Please, control your sister.” The doctor edged himself out of the room.

“Come on, let’s go see Dad, he’ll know what to do.”

Dad was feeling much better, he was sitting up in the bed with his arm in a sling, other than that and being a little pale he seemed fine.

“Daddy!” I cried out as I ran over to the bed and hugged him, I was careful not to jostle his arm.

“Hey kid, it’s nice to see you awake. These people are holding me hostage in this room and wouldn’t let me go and see you.”

I let him go and he pulled something out of his wallet.

“Here. Give them my insurance.”

I took the card and smiled. “Elroy McGillicutty, as in ‘I Love Lucy’?”

“And his three loving children.” He smiled back. “So, what else did the doctor say about Dean?”

Sam explained Dean’s condition and we talked about finding someone supernatural to help us, like that faith healer we found who saved Dean once before. But Dad made us consider that there may not be anyone to find. He asked Sam to bring the Colt from the truck and to get some unusual items that he said were to provide protection from the demon.

“Hey, are you okay?” I asked Sam when we got down to the lobby.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He was lying. The bags under his eyes had bags; he was dragging his feet with every step he took.

“Sam, you are not fine, you look like you walked off the set of a zombie movie.” I made him stop in front of him. “Have you slept at all in the past three days?”

“Bella, I said I’m fine, now get out of the way.” He tried to push past me but stumbled into me.

“No.” I helped him back up and over to a chair. “Not until you tell me what is going on with you.”

Sam sighed. “I couldn’t do it.” he paused. “I couldn’t kill the demon.” He whispered.

“Sam, that wasn’t your fault, you would have killed Dad if you had.”

“Yes it is Bella, if I had done my job then the demon would be dead and we wouldn’t have ended up in that accident and Dean would still be alive.”

I slapped him, his sullen expression didn’t change. “Don’t you dare talk about Dean like he’s gone!” I tried to control my voice, people were starting to stare. “Dean is going to pull through this, screw what the doctors say. We’ve seen stuff that would make them pee in their pants.”

He laughed a little. “Now I’m going to have to live with Dad’s resentment forever because I couldn’t ice the demon.”

“Sam, shut up.” I crossed my arms across my chest. “If you are going to wallow in self-pity then don’t cry about it.”

We sat in silence until Bobby got there.

“Are you kids ok?” He asked us as he hugged us.

“We’re fine Bobby.” Sam tried to put on a brave face.

“It’s good to see you again Bobby.” My smile was more genuine.

He drove us back to his junk yard, I didn’t want to be so far away from Dad and Dean but we had to go check on the car. It might have been a good thing that Dean was out of it, when we got to his car, it was almost totally wrecked.

“Look, this… this just ain’t worth a tow.” Bobby explained. He lifted up the hood to check the engine and slammed it shut. The hood popped away from the frame. “I say we empty the trunk and sell the rest for scrap.”

“No. Dean would kill me if we did that.” Sam looked at me and grinned. “When he gets better he’s gonna want to fix this.” He found his computer in the wreckage and tried to open it. The screen came off of the keyboard.

“There’s nothing to fix.” Bobby protested. “The frame’s a pretzel, and the engine’s ruined. There’s barely any parts worth salvaging.”

“Listen to me, Bobby. If there’s only one working part, that’s enough. We’re not just going to give up on…”

I knew what he meant, if we give up on the car, we give up on Dean, besides, when he does wake up he’s going to be pissed that the car is wrecked.

Sam gave Bobby the list of stuff we had gotten from Dad. He wondered what Dad wanted with all this stuff, it was ingredients for summoning demons.

“Maybe I should drive back Sam.” I offered as we made our way to the car that Bobby had loaned us.

“Why?” His hands were shaking and his face was turning redder by the minute.

“Because you aren’t in the best mood to be driving.” I took the keys from him forcefully.

“Bella, he lied to us, again, aren’t you upset by this?”

“Yeah, I am, but I’m smart enough to realize that if he had told us what it was for we wouldn’t have gone for them.”

“You’re right; he just wants to have a death match with this thing while Dean’s life just wastes away!” He was in my face, rage pouring out of him. He had a tight grip on my arms.

“You are hurting me Sam! Let go!” I gritted my teeth.

His expression calmed down a little bit and he let me go. “Fine, you drive.”

It was a long quiet drive back to the hospital. Sam was literally chomping at the bit he couldn’t wait to yell at Dad.

“Sam, if I asked you to do something, would you do it?” I risked a glance over in his direction.

“What?” The anger was fading out of his voice and weariness was setting in.

“Please don’t start anything with Dad. I know you two don’t have a great history but there has to be a reason that he’s doing this.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “I would really love to know why you put so much faith in him. He doesn’t care that Dean is dying; he doesn’t want to save him. He wants to duke it out with that demon.”

“Sam, we have one bullet left.” I thought about my words carefully. “How many more opportunities are we going to have to kill this thing? Maybe summoning the demon is the only option we have left; maybe he can even save Dean.”

“Bella it’s a demon! It’s not going to help us!” He shouted. “I never thought I’d see the day where you would trust a demon over me.”

I pursed my lips and kept driving, tears stung in my eyes as I closed off our mind link, I didn’t want to hear his groveling for my forgiveness.

When we got in the parking lot I got out, tossed Sam the key’s and headed for the entrance.

“Where are you going?” I heard Sam call out.

“What do you care?!” I yelled back at him, I wiped the tears away as I shoved the door open. The nurses paid me no attention, I guess seeing a crying girl running through the halls didn’t faze them anymore. The elevator took me up to Dean’s room. The doctor’s told us that his condition might get better if we went in and talked to him.

Hunters are never expected to live long, we all have the thought in the back of our heads that this maybe our last day on Earth. It just happens; good men go down every day; it’s one of the downsides of the job. But Dean couldn’t die, not today, who else was going to be the pain in my butt?

I sighed as I went into the room, nothing had changed since the last time I had been in there, the monitors were still humming and beeping, the tube was still in his mouth and his chest were still rising and falling rhythmically. “Hey Dean.” I smiled sadly as I grabbed his hand. “How are you feeling?” His monitor’s didn’t respond to my question. “I feel really stupid right now, but anyway…”

I kept talking to him, ignoring how stupid it sounded. I could hear Sam and Dad griping in the other room. I tried to block it out and focus on Dean, but a few words did slip through.

“You’re planning on bringing the demon here, aren’t you? Having some stupid macho showdown?!” I heard Sam shouting.

“I have a plan, Sam.” I heard Dad respond calmly.

“That’s exactly my point! Dean is dying, and you have a plan! You know what; you care more about killing this demon than you do saving your own son!”

The tears fell from my eyes and landed on dean’s hand. “What am I supposed to do Dean?” I started crying. Then I gasped as I felt a cold burst of air on my shoulders. “Dean?” The monitors started going crazy and then the heart monitor flat lined. “DEAN!” I screamed.

The doctors and nurses pushed me out of the way; one was restraining me as I struggled to get back to Dean. Sam came rushing in.

“No…” He sagged against the door frame and started weeping.

“Clear!” The doctor rubbed the shock pads of the defibrillator together and pressed them to Dean’s chest, his body jolted and slumped back down on the bed.

“Dean please come back!” I cried. They tried to bring him back again, and failed. I felt a rush of cold air again and I heard a faint voice saying, ‘I said get back!’

I looked at Sam. _Did you hear that?_ His expression was just as mystified as mine.

The third shock registered a pulse. “Thank God.” I breathed. I looked at the nurse who I had almost killed to get to Dean. “I’m really sorry about that.”

“It’s alright dear, I would act the same way over my brother.” She smiled warmly and walked out with the rest of the nurses.

I looked at Sam, he started breathing heavily. _You ok?_

 _Yea, I’m fine_. “Is he going to be okay?” Sam asked Dean’s doctor.

“It’s hard to tell, we managed to bring him back, this time.” He looked at us grimly and walked out.

“Well isn’t he a ray of sunshine.” I rolled my eyes. “What just happened? Please tell me you felt that?”

“I think so, do you think it was…. Dean’s spirit or something?” He offered as a possible explanation.

“In our world, it wouldn’t surprise me.” I walked over to the bed and held Dean’s hand again. “Please tell me you are fighting this Dean?”

“You know, there was a moment, when Dad and I were….”

“Fighting? Yeah I heard that.” I looked at the floor, Dean almost died and they were arguing about trying to save him.

“Well, at one point the glass that was on Dad’s table was knocked off and sailed clear across the room.”

“Like it was pushed?” That was certainly strange.

“Yeah, weird huh?”

I sighed and looked at Dean one more time before we headed back to Dad’s room.

“What do you mean you felt something?” Dad asked, I guess he thought we were crazy by the look he was giving us.

Sam thought that it might be linked to our psychic abilities, if we could hear each other why not Dean? But I figure if we had been able to hear Dean’s thoughts we would have by now. But Dad thought there was a definite possibility that Dean’s spirit was still around. At least they were finally agreeing on something, and that’s a start. He also promised to focus on getting Dean back and then we would resume the search for the demon.

Sam had this wild idea that if Dean was a spirit and was still on this side then he could communicate using an Ouija board

“Come on Sam.” I started laughing as he got back in the car with it. “You know those things are just pieces of junk used to scare the crap out of kids at slumber parties.”

He looked at me before starting the car. “Don’t mock me. Besides, this is the only lead we have. If you have a better idea I’m all ears.”

I just crossed my arms and laughed as we sped away.

Even though I had already ribbed him for buying the dumb thing he hesitated by the door.

“Maybe you’re right, maybe this won’t work.” He turned to leave.

“Oh no,” I grabbed his jacket and pulled him back. “this was your idea, Ouija boy. So get in there and communicate with the dead!” I shoved him in the door.

“Don’t make fun of me for this but, um….” Sam spoke to Dean as he pulled out the Ouija board. “there’s one way we can talk.”

“I told him it was nuts.” I laughed, trying to talk to Dean like he was still here, hoping against hope that he was. We both sat across from each other on the floor at the foot of the hospital bed. “This is so stupid.” I shook my head and placed my fingers on the heart shaped piece of wood.

“It won’t work if you don’t try.” Sam chided me.

I smirked as I closed my eyes. _I really hope this works._

“Dean?” Sam called out. I peeked at Sam and he was looking around the room as if Dean was suddenly going to appear. I exhaled with a smirk and closed my eyes again. _Dean?_

“Dean, are you here?” Sam asked once more.

I gasped as I felt the heart shaped piece of wood move under my hand and be pushed towards me. “Are you doing that?”

“No, I thought you were.” Sam’s eyes were just as bugged out as mine. The wood moved over a word, the small circle cut out of the middle was over the word yes.

Sam started laughing. “Oh it’s so good to hear from you, man.”

“It hasn’t been the same without you, Dean.” I smiled.

We found out that Dean had been in the hospital all this time chasing after something, something that had tried to kill him when he flat lined. But he said it wasn’t killing people it was taking them, a reaper. He said it was after him too.

“If it’s here naturally then there’s no way to stop it.” Sam pointed out.

“There’s no lore on killing Death or reapers is there?” I wondered aloud.

“We can find out.” Sam jumped up and headed out of the room. “Dad will know what to do.”

I stood up and went back over to Dean and bent down to his ear. “Please hold on for a little while longer?” and I kissed the top of his head. I felt a cold breeze touch my hand and then it was gone.

 


	16. Death Waits for No Man

**Chapter 15: Death Waits For No Man**

We went back to Dad’s room and it was empty. “Dad?” Sam called out.

“Where is he?” I checked the bathroom to make sure he wasn’t there. It was like he had just vanished. “You don’t think he could have –?” I couldn’t say the words out loud. I looked and the duffle bag with the summoning ingredients was gone.

“There’s one way to find out, why don’t you look around?” Sam asked as he pulled out Dad’s journal.

I went over to the nurses’ station first and my favorite nurse was on duty.

“Can I help you?”

“Have you seen my father? He’s not in his room.”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t seen him.” She smiled smugly and I turned to leave.

“Maybe he wanted to get away from you.” I heard her mutter to herself as she went back to work. _Bella, not really the time._ I heard Sam’s voice drift into my thoughts. I gritted my teeth and rolled my eyes as I went and checked an abandoned room.

Sam had gone into Dean’s room to tell him that Dad was gone. I could hear Sam’s one sided conversation in my head. He was thinking that there may be something in Dad’s journal about reapers. He read through a bunch of stuff that didn’t really make much sense to me, like reapers can alter human perception. _What good is this info going to do for Dean? Does it have anything useful in it like how to kill them?_ I asked.

_I’m getting at that._

He finally gave up on that and started talking to Dean.

“Dean, are you here? I couldn’t find anything in the book. I don’t know how to help you.”

 _We’ll find a way Sam, we just have to find Dad, come and help me look._ I called out to him.

He ignored me.“But we’ll keep trying all right? As long as you keep fighting.” He sighed. “I mean, come on, you can’t…” then he chuckled. “you can’t leave me here alone with Dad. We’ll kill each other, you know that, and Bella will miss you too much.” There was a long pause.

 _Sam?_ I thought quietly.

“Dean, you got to hold on. You can’t go, man, not now. We were just starting to be brothers again. Can you hear me?”

I sat down on the corridor steps. He was right, it had been just like it was before Sam left; we had started to feel like a family again, whole, complete.

 “Dean?!” I heard Sam scream. I bolted down the stairs and pushed past people to get to Dean’s room. My heart was beating against my ribs so hard that it hurt. I was afraid that this was it, this was the last time I was going to see Dean on this side of the sod. I totally forgot about Dad as I saw the nurses rush into his room. My eyes started brimming with tears as I struggled to find the energy to get down the hall. I tripped over something and hit the floor, the salty tears poured down my face and onto the cold tile floor under my legs. I couldn’t accept the fact that Dean was dead, it wasn’t possible.

A nurse came over to me and consoled me.

“I can’t believe he’s gone!” I cried into her shoulder.

“It’s going to be alright, he’s in a better place now.” She patted my head and smoothed out my hair.

 _Bella! Dean’s not dead!_ Sam cried out to me. _He’s alive, somehow. I can’t explain it._

“What?” I asked breathlessly.

“I said he is in a better place now.” She repeated with a puzzled expression.

“No, he’s not dead!” I smiled and laughed. The nurse probably thought I was insane but I didn’t stop long enough for her to reply. I rushed down the hall and into Dean’s room. He was sitting up in the bed and had the tube out of his mouth, he smiled weakly at me. “Dean you are such a jerk!” I started to cry and tackled him with a hug.

“Bella, that hurts.” Dean groaned as he tried to pull me off.

“I’m sorry, sorry!” I released him and wiped away my tears.

“Jeez Izzy, who knew you were such a leaky faucet?” He grinned at me.

“Shut up.” I mumbled at him as I wiped away the last tear.

Sam and I slept in Dean’s room that night. We figured that Dad had left again so he wouldn’t have to see Dean die. I don’t blame him, if I had thought I could have done it I would have run away too. I probably would have gone back to Charlie’s. But I wasn’t going to make Sam lose everything all at once; I would be there for him when no one else would.

“I can’t explain it. The edema has vanished, the internal contusions are healed. Your vitals are good. You’ve got to have some kind of angel watching over you.” The doctor’s dumbfounded expression the next morning said it all.

 _I told him he would pull through._ I thought.

Sam shook his head and smiled.

“Thanks Doc.” Dean nodded his head and the doctor walked out.

“You said a reaper was after me?” Dean asked. Apparently he had no memory of it. It was like the time between the crash and just before he woke up had been erased from his memory. “How did I ditch it?”

We had no answer for it, Sam had been with Dean the whole time and I was still out looking for Dad, but Dean insisted that something still felt wrong. There was a knock on the door and we turned to see Dad standing in the doorway.

“Dad!” I ran over and hugged him. “Where did you go, you had us worried.”

“It’s alright Bella. How you felling, dude?” He smirked.

“Fine, I guess.” Dean’s voice still sounded distracted. “I’m alive.”

“That’s what matters.” Dad’s voice sounded off too, I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Where were you last night?” Sam looked at him darkly.

 _Not now Sam!_ I warned him. _Don’t ruin the moment!_

Dad took his gaze away from Dean and over to Sam. “I had some things to take care of.”

“Well that’s specific.” Sam rolled his eyes.

“Come on, Sam.” Dean’s expression went sour.

“Did you go after the demon?” Sam ignored Dean’s request and grilled Dad further.

Dad looked down at the ground and then back up at Sam. “No.” he shook his head.

“You know, why don’t I believe you right now?” Sam shook his head in anger.

Dad let me go and walked closer to Dean’s bed. “Can we not fight?” His voice was not filled with anger, it was pleading. Sam’s expression faltered a little. “You know, half the time we’re fighting. I don’t know what we’re fighting about. We’re just butting heads.”

“Yes, please stop fighting, we just got Dean back.” I walked over to the foot of the bed and looked at them both. They turned and looked at me, Dad was grateful and Sam was still in shock, then back to each other.

“Look, I’ve…” Dad paused. “I’ve made some mistakes. But I’ve always done the best I could. I just don’t want to fight anymore, okay?”

“Dad, are you all right?” Sam asked. I looked at dad and noticed that he was close to tears.

“Daddy?” I put my hand on his arm. He turned to me and smiling he put his hand on top of mine.

“Yeah. I’m just a little tired.” He turned back to Sam. “Hey, would you two mind, uh, getting me a cup of caffeine?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure.” Sam was still worried about Dad as he walked over to the door.

“We’ll be right back.” I smiled as I kissed Dad on the cheek and walked out with Sam.

I didn’t know that would be the last time I saw him alive.

Sam was holding the crappy coffee from the cafeteria downstairs and we were talking about something stupid like who would win in a fight: werewolves over vamps, when passed the door to Dad’s room, my heart stopped.

“Dad!” I shrieked. Sam dropped the cup and went over to where dad was lying unconscious on the floor. Sam cried out for help but I couldn’t hear his words, my ragged heart beat was roaring in my own ears. I sank to the floor again as I stared at his lifeless body. The nurses came in and told us to leave. Sam picked me up off the floor and we went to Dean’s room. Dean pulled the covers of his bed away and yanked the needles out of his arm and we ran back to Dad’s room.

A nurse tried to push us back but we explained that we were his children. They were frantically trying to bring him back, they had strapped a heart monitor to him and it was still flat lining.

“No you can’t give up. Not now.” I cried into Dean’s white shirt.

I watched in vain as they tried desperately to bring my father back, however pointless it may be. I couldn’t stop the tears from gushing out in torrents.

“Daddy, please come back!” I whimpered. “Don’t leave me, please!”

"Time of death, 10.41 am," a doctor called and my heart almost stopped.

“NO!” I cried out. Dean held me tightly and put his head on top of mine. I could feel Sam put one arm on my shoulder. We stood like that for what seemed like a century. I looked up at our eldest brother, now the eldest Winchester. Dean's lips were trembling, green eyes filled with sorrow and grief. The doctor looked up at us.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he said simply and I wanted to slap him.

I couldn’t believe it. Dad was gone.

We took him back to Greenville Illinois, the place where mom’s headstone was since there was no body to bury for her. I couldn’t stand to burn him. It seemed too cruel after everything we had been through. But Sam and Dean were opposed to it, if we didn’t destroy his remains some other demon could pop in to his body and then we would have to kill him. So we all compromised by placing protective spells around his grave, a gift from Bobby.

I placed a white rose on the headstone and burst into tears, not only was I saying goodbye to my Dad but it was the first time I had been to Mom’s grave. It was just a head stone but it was the only thing I had left of her. Sam and Dean let me grieve, as well as doing some of their own and then we packed up and headed for Bobby’s.


	17. The Aftermath

**Chapter 16: The Aftermath**

“You are not shipping me off to Charlie!” I yelled at Sam. “I can’t go back there, I have to help you find that demon and kill it, for all the messed up crap that it’s done!”

“Which is exactly why you need to go Izzy.” Dean snapped.

“Oh so you are on his side now? What about family sticks together Dean?”

"Family is not about getting each other killed. Family is about protecting each other!" Dean shouted back.

“Which is why someone needs to be there to watch your back!”

“Sam can do that. Bella, we just don’t want you to get hurt.” Dean tried to talk normally.

“We lost Mom… now Dad… we can’t lose you too.” Sam tried to make his words come across soothing.

“You haven’t been at this as long as we have.” Dean added.

“You can’t send me away! I’m not a child!” I couldn’t believe they were ganging up on me like this, what gives them the right? “I’m your twin! Being a few minutes older doesn’t give you the right to do this!”

Dean picked up my phone and handed it to me. “Call Charlie or I’ll do it for you.”

“No I’m not. You can’t make me go!” My eyes started brimming with tears.

“Bella please.” Sam came over to me and put his hand on my shoulder. “Just take a few days to get over this, we can always swing back by and get you. All you have to do is call us.”

I sighed. "Okay, but I swear I hate you for this," I scowled. They already knew I didn't mean it. It was an empty statement. I began dialing Charlie's number.

I walked outside and held the phone to my ear. The phone ran three times and then I heard Charlie breathing on the other end. “Hello?”

“Hey Charlie. It’s me, Bella.” I tried to let the anger go out of my voice.

“Thank God. I thought it was going to be Sam or Dean telling me you’d…” He didn’t finish his sentence.

“I’m fine, Sam and Dean are okay too… physically at least.” I scoffed. “Not even that.”

Charlie must have picked up on my mood because he asked if I was feeling ok.

“About three weeks ago… we were all in a car accident; we were hit by a semi.” I tried to hold back the tears. “And Dad… he…. We thought he was ok, and Dean … he was in a coma. They said he was gonna die. Then all of a sudden, Dean was awake, and a few minutes later… we…” I couldn’t stop the sob that escaped my throat. “found Dad dead…”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Bella, I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks Charlie.” I sniffled and smiled.

“So when are you coming home?” Charlie asked. It almost killed me to hear the enthusiasm in his voice.

“They want me to come and stay with you…” I let my sentence trail off.

“You don’t sound like you want to though.” He read my hesitation.

“No… not really. I mean, no offense Charlie. I – I need to stay with them, but the guys are insisting.”

“If I have learned anything about you Bella is that once you’ve set your mind to it, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish and no one can stand in your way. Just know you always have a home here.”

“Thank you Charlie. I just don’t know what to do… with Dad gone…” The tears stung my eyes again.

“You make sure those two yahoo’s don’t get their butts into trouble, that’s what.”

I laughed weakly; he always knew just what to say.

“Hey, love ya kid.”

“Love you too Charlie, you’re always there for me…” I huffed in amusement. “I’m getting sappy…”

“Come home soon kid.” Charlie replied. “In one piece too.”

“I’ll try Charlie, thanks. Bye.”

“See you around.” The receiver clicked and he was gone.

I walked over to the door walked back in the house. Sam and Dean had their backs to me, looking over the books and maps they had been looking over all day; they were looking for a new case.

“You know it’s dangerous to turn your backs on a heavily armed woman right?” I smiled.

“Right, and we both know how much of a terrible shot you are.” Sam smirked.

“Says who?” I punched him when I walked up to them.

Dean didn’t say anything to me; he glanced at me and went back to work. “Is Charlie coming to get you?” He asked.

“Uh… no I told him that I would catch a greyhound.” I lied smoothly. “He has to work tomorrow and I wouldn’t want him to drive all the way here.”

“Are you sure Bella? We could always drive you there.” Sam replied. Shoot! I forgot about the mind link thing! Start thinking about something quick! _So I put my hands up there playin’ my song, the butterflies fly away…_

He looked at me with a puzzled expression as I kept singing the song to myself.

 _Great, now that song is going to be stuck in my head…_ he rolled his eyes.

“No, I’m a big girl; I can handle getting on a bus.”

“Ok, we’ll drive you to the station in the morning and you can pick up a ticket.” Dean walked over to me and pulled out his wallet. “Here…” He handed me twenty bucks.

“What are you giving me this for?”

“I just feel like it’s something Dad would have done.”

My internal Miley on repeat faltered a little, I could see it in his eyes, he hadn’t totally grieved Dad’s passing. He had kept himself calm and collected, being strong for Sam and me, but he was just as devastated as we were. But he never talked about it. He stayed outside all day fixing up the impala until it was too dark to see and then he slept or did research into new cases. He had started working on the car even after it got dark with work lamps but I got the idea to hide all the light bulbs from him. Sam tried to convince him to resume the search on the demon. But Dean reminded him that we had no leads, and no Colt and he was doing what he could, fix the car.

“Okay.” I took the money from him and slipped it into my back pocket.

Bobby came back in from town a couple of hours later, he said he needed to go get some milk but I knew that he didn’t want to be around us; we were like a ticking emotional time bomb just waiting to go off. We had been sleeping in his beds, binging on his food and overstaying our welcome for a few weeks now, he was so gracious to open his home to us; it really made us feel closer to him. He brought us a new case to work: a rash of murders happening in Nebraska. Dean didn’t want me to hear the details of the case, I guess he figured that I might try and come back to help them on it. He sent me to bed upstairs the furthest room away from Bobby’s study, but I guess he forget about mine and Sam’s mind link.

The Miley Cyrus song was getting old so I changed to a different song as I laid my head down on the pillow.

_I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves, everybody's nerves, I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, and this is how it goooes..._

_Why are you singing "I Know a Song That Gets on Everybody's Nerves" over and over?_ I heard Sam ask me about 5 rounds later

I grinned _I find it catchy!_

 

The next morning we packed up our stuff and got in a Dodge Caravan that Bobby had agreed to loan us and we headed off for Jefferson Lines, the closest Greyhound station to Bobby’s.

“Can I help you Sweetie?” the nice lady who was working the ticket counter asked me.

“I guess I need a ticket to Forks Washington.” I sighed as I put my money on the counter.

Sam and Dean were waiting outside holding my bag hostage; I guess Dean thought I was not going to go through with it. He was right for thinking so because that was exactly what I was doing, but it was annoying that he didn’t trust me.

“Ok will that be round trip or one way?”

“One way.”

“Alrighty! Are you going to visit family?” She clicked away on her keyboard and tried to make small talk.

“You could say that, I’m going to live with my cousin, he raised me after my parent’s died.” I had said that line so many times that it came out robotically without me meaning it to.

“Oh hun, I’m so sorry!” She looked at me with that fake concern that everyone had when someone tells you bad news that you really aren’t affected by it.

“It’s ok, it happened a long time ago.” Again, another robotic reply.

I walked out of the station a few minutes later holding my ticket.

“Here it is, are you happy?” I waved them in Dean’s face. I knew I was being a bit childish but he wouldn’t stop treating me like one so what else was I supposed to do?

“Trust me Izzy; you are going to be happy we did this one day.” He handed me my bag.

“Yea whatever.” I swung my bag over my shoulder. “Don’t hold your breath.”

“When does your bus leave?” Sam asked.

“About 1:30, I just missed the last one.” I replied.

“Well we could stay with you if you wanted.” He offered.

“No thanks, you are needed elsewhere.” I shoved them towards the car. “There are all those murders in where exactly?”

“Like you need to know.” Dean rolled his eyes as he got in the passenger seat. He refused to drive until the Impala was fixed.

  1. Sam called out in his head.
  2. I smiled gratefully.



_I can’t say I approve of this Bella, but I’m not going to push you away. I would never do that._

_I know thanks._ _Please don’t tell Dean._ I waved as I watched them leave. He never answered me. I guess I would have to go on blind faith that he wouldn’t sell me out.

I ran back in the station right back to the ticket counter. “Can I exchange this ticket for a different one please?”

“Of course honey but why the change?” The same lady asked me.

“I had a change in plans; I’m staying with my brothers.” _They are going to have to do a whole lot better than this to get rid of me._

 


	18. Girl Power

**Chapter 17: Girl Power**

“Sam and Dean Winchester? Yea, they passed by here a couple of hours ago, what’s it to you?”

From the moment I met Ellen Harvelle I knew we were going to be friends.

“I’m… a friend of theirs; I’m just trying to hunt them down.” I took the small shot of whiskey that she passed to me. The bar was in full swing, the little blonde waitress was walking around to every table making sure everyone was doing alright and sometimes she would sit down and talk with them, but a glare from Ellen would make her get up and move on to the next table. “My uncle said that they were headed this way.”

“Honey, you seem like a nice girl, what in the world are you doing with two trouble makers like Sam and Dean?” Ellen looked at me with sympathy and then glanced at the blonde who was wiping down the bar on the opposite end from where we were.

“I would rather keep that to myself, if you don’t mind.” In my experience, telling just anyone that you hunt monsters with your brothers for a living, kind of freaks them out.

“Then you won’t mind if I keep what I know to myself.” Ellen tightened her lips and raised her eyebrows.

“They are my brothers.” I looked down at my glass; I didn’t want to see her expression.

“I figured as much.” I looked back up to see her smirk. “They had no idea they had walked into a hunter’s bar either.”

I looked around again and saw that almost the entire bar was full of mostly men, loaded to the nines with weaponry.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I laughed lightly. “This is, like, a hunter’s retreat or something?”

“I guess you could call it that, it was always my husband’s dream to open up this place. God rest his soul.” She pointed to a picture frame on the wall. It was a younger version of her and a man holding hands. “Unfortunately he didn’t live long enough to see it happen. So now it’s just Jo and me runnin’ the joint.”

“Hey table four is out of beer.” The blonde, Jo, came up. “Who’s this?”

“I’m Bella, Sam and Dean’s sister.” I offered her my hand and she just looked at it.

“Sam and Dean never mentioned a sister.” She glared at me.

“Relax, she ain’t no demon.” Ellen stopped her from grabbing something from under the bar. “I spiked her whiskey with holy water.”

“Huh.” I picked up the glass and threw the rest of it down. “I never thought of that.”

“Where do you think the expression ‘Don’t drink the red Kool-Aid’ came from?” Ellen replied with a smirk.

“Hi, my name’s Jo.” She took my hand and smiled warmly. “You just missed them; they left for the town a few miles down the road.”

“That’s what I was told.” I sighed.

“I wonder why they didn’t mention you.” Jo wondered aloud.

“Probably because they think I’m half way to Washington by now.” I admitted sheepishly. “Well Dean does anyway.”

“Washington?” Ellen and Jo said simultaneously.

“Yeah, my cousin lives there. He kinda raised me; I didn’t travel around with Sam, Dean, and our dad until I was 13.”

Jo huffed in amusement. “Wow, how did you stand it?”

“Joanna Beth.” Ellen chastised her.

“What? I couldn’t stand to live a normal life.” Jo picked up the pitcher of beer and headed off to table four screaming. “I’m coming, keep your shirt on!”

I smirked as I turned back to Ellen.

“That girl is going to get on my last nerve.” She sighed and rubbed her temple with both hands.

“Did they mention anything about a…” I hesitated over the last word and whispered it to her. “demon?”

“I don’t think they would want you to know about that.” Ellen started to walk away.

“Ellen please, I need to know.” I grabbed her sleeve.

“Bella, this thing killed your daddy, if I were you, I would get right back on that bus and head back to your cousin, it’s the best shot you’ve got.” She looked at me sadly and put her hand over top of mine.

I sighed, obviously I wasn’t going to get anything else out of her; I wonder if Jo knows anything…

“I would love to help you Bella but Mom watches me like a hawk, I have to finish work here and then I have to downstairs and do inventory and restock the supply room.” Jo sighed as she picked up a bucket and a wet rag. Then she went over to a table to clean it.

“Why does she watch you all the time?” I followed her, picking up a dish towel.

Jo huffed in amusement. “She doesn’t trust me.” She started piling the dishes, cups, and silverware into the bucket and wiped down the table with the wet rag. I took the dry dish towel that I had and went over the table to dry it. Jo smiled at me, “Mom doesn’t want me to hunt. I guess she thinks that I’m going to get up with some of the hunters that pass through here and go off and leave her.”

“I guess that makes sense. I probably wouldn’t let my daughter go hunting either.” I followed her to the next table, she didn’t object, it was actually kind of nice talking to another girl, I had traveled so much with Sam and Dean it was nice to have a change of pace. “I’m sure my mom wouldn’t have wanted me to start hunting. What about your Dad?”

The plate she was getting ready to put in the bucket clattered to the floor, thankfully they used plastic plates. Everyone in the bar turned to stare at us. I quickly picked up the plate and laughed nervously. “I’m such a klutz! Sorry Jo.” and handed it to her. She smiled a little sadly and took it from me. Then the people went back to talking between themselves.

“My Dad’s gone; he died when I was real young.” She admitted bitterly. She threw the plates into the bucket and didn’t bother to wipe the table down. She rushed over to the next table and started cleaning it quickly.

“I’m sorry Jo, forget I even asked.” I followed her over to the table.

She sighed and sat the bucket down on one of the chairs. “It’s ok, I just get a little defensive about it; he went down on a hunt.”

“Oh.” My brilliant response, we were more alike than I had realized. “Just like mine.”

“Yeah, it’s nice to have someone who really gets it, you know.” She smiled, wiping the table down.

“I guess. You shouldn’t be so hard on your mom though.” I followed up with the dish towel. “She’s just looking out for you. I would do the same thing if I had a younger sister or daughter.”

“Kind of like how you listened to Dean?” She pointed out with a smirk.

“That’s different.” I looked down but she was right, I had defied Dean’s orders by coming back, so how could I tell Jo anything different?

“Like hell it is.” She grinned, catching me in my bluff, and then she sighed. “I guess I need to head down stairs.”

“I’ll help you.” I started following her. She turned back to me with an amused expression.

We spent two hours down there restocking the shelves. Ellen came and checked on us every few minutes. I could understand Jo’s frustration. It was annoying to have Ellen pop in every few minutes to check on us. I also figured out that she was trying to tire Jo out so she couldn’t sneak out and go on a hunt. We came back up after the bar was closed and helped Ellen lock up.

“I guess I’ll see you guys around.” I smiled and went for the door, I had to get back to Dean and Sam before they left again, and it was hard to track them down as it is.

“Bella it’s late.” Ellen put her hand on my shoulder. “Jo has a spare floor. I have an air mattress that I can pull in there. You can stay here for the night.”

“That’s really sweet of you Ellen, but haven’t I intruded on your hospitality long enough?”

Ellen smirked and said. “Dean would probably kill me if I turned his little sister out to the street. You are staying here, no questions.”

“Thank you.”

Ellen had moved the air mattress into Jo’s room and had just shut the door leaving us to sleep.

“So do you want to stay up late and talk about boys?” I said with mock enthusiasm.

Jo chuckled as she took off her shirt and put on an old rock band shirt that was four times too big then pulled off her jeans. “And by boys I assume you are talking about Sam and Dean?”

“Yeah,” I frowned. “What did they talk about when they came?”

“They gave your dad’s information on the demon that you are hunting to Ash and he’s analyzing the information to see if there are any patterns.”

“Ash?” I questioned with a little huff of amusement.

“He’s the guy that lives with us, he is an uncertified genius. Went to MIT and was kicked out for fighting.”

“A rebellious genius.” I grinned.

“Yeah, but he stays in that room all day, a total recluse.” She laughed as she pulled out a bag of sour gummy worms from under her pillow. “You want some?”

“Sure.” I pulled out a blue and pink one. “The blue and pink ones are my favorite!”

“Mine too!”

We laughed until Ellen came and beat on the door and told us to go to sleep.


	19. The Jig is Up

**Chapter 18: The Jig is Up**

Dean POV

We had just gotten back to Bobby’s, Sam had to face down his fear of clowns, which was a stupid thing to be afraid of but there you go, we’re all afraid of something right?

“That car is a piece of crap.” I pointed at the car that Bobby had loaned us.

“Hey, nobody asked you to take it idgit.” Bobby rolled his eyes and I smirked.

“Sam, I’m going out to work on the impala are you coming?” I grabbed two beers out of the fridge and walked out the door. He followed behind me silently.

“Hey, you did good today.” I tossed Sam a beer. “I wonder if Bella made it to Charlie’s okay.” I’d been worried about my sister ever since we had left her at the station.

“I’d say she made it fine.” Sam replied. “She’s a big girl Dean.” He was talking to me like I was friggin’ five.

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t remind me.” Don’t get me wrong, I loved my little sister but she could be a pain in the ass when she wants to be.

“Dean, you have to let her do her own thing sometimes. We're not little kids anymore.” He reminded me.

“Yeah, that happened with you and Stanford and look where that got you?” I shot back knowing that put salt in the wound, but it was true. If he had just stayed at Stanford, none of this would have happened. Of course it was Bella’s idea to bring him back into this, but I didn’t try as hard to make him stay. Sam glared at me over his bottle. “What?” I exclaimed. “It’s the truth.” I felt around in my pocket for my phone. “I guess I should call her and see if she made it ok.”

“She’s probably still pissed at you.” Sam scowled and used that irritating superior voice that he knew I hated.

“Yeah, she probably is.” I shrugged as I put my phone up and then slid back under the impala. That s.o.b demon wrecked my baby….

“Why don’t you give it a rest for tonight? We just got back from a hunt.” I heard Sam sigh.

I slid back out and looked at him. “No, first you fight about Dad now this!” I exclaimed and rolled my eyes and slid back under the car. I was sick and tired of fighting with him, I half wished that I had sent him back to Stanford instead of sending Bella back to Charlie. It was just easier to talk to her. I hope she won’t stay mad at me long, I hated when we fought.

“I’m just saying you need to sleep Dean, don’t be a jerk about it.”

“I don’t need to sleep.” I started unbolting the crap engine. I had already attached it to the engine jack so it wouldn’t come crashing through and crush me. “I’m fine, I’m getting a few hours.”

“Three hours isn’t good, Dean.” Sam yelled at me, I could see his feet shifting around, was he pacing?

“Well what do you want me to do?” I bit out. “I’m not cramming myself back into that piece of crap car. I have to get her back in working condition.” I had collected most of the bolts by this time and I had started working on the pretzel framework. “If I ever get a hold of the demon that did this to her…” It was a good thing that I was k.o.ed when the truck hit us or I would have used that last bullet on it, Dad would have been pissed but he could get over it, well could have.

“I want you to sleep! To talk! Dad’s dead, and it left a hole, and you can’t take it!” Sam exploded. “You’re on the edge, erratic even when we aren’t hunting, and when you are, you’re downright scary!”

I sighed, he saw more than I realized. I thought I was putting on a good show. “I’m fine, Sam.”

“No you’re not.” I felt him pull hard on my feet and jerk me out from under the car. I glared at him. “Look Dean, you were right.”

“I’m right about a lot of things, but what this time.” I smiled cheekily.

“About me and Dad.” Sam said his voice suddenly soft. “I’m sorry that the last time I was with him I tried to pick a fight and I spent most of my life angry at him. He probably died thinking that I hate him. And what I’m doing right now, it’s too little, too late.”

“What are you talking about Sam?” I sat up. “He was proud of you.” I said incredulously. He actually never shut up about Sam the whole time he was gone, it kinda made me feel jealous.

“We both know he wasn’t Dean.” Sam sighed. “I miss him man, and I feel as guilty as hell. I’m not all right, not at all. But neither are you. At least I can admit that.”

“Sammy…” I warned, glaring. Was it too much to just leave it alone? I pulled out my phone, she should have gotten there by now. I couldn’t call her but maybe I could call Charlie.

“Dean, what are you doing?” Sam leaned against the car.

I didn’t answer him as the phone rang, he picked up after the fourth ring.

“Hello?” Charlie’s voice sounded.

“Hey Charlie, its Dean.” I tried to sound happy but I could tell how fake it sounded.

“Hey Dean….” He chuckled nervously. There was a long pause. “How’s it going?”

“Okay I guess.” I replied, what was he so anxious about? “Did Bella get there okay?”

“Yeah, sure she got there about an hour ago.” Charlie answered.

“Is she there? I want to talk to her.” I had a feeling that she wouldn’t go, I needed to talk to her to make sure she was there.

“I’m afraid not, she went down to the Black’s. One of her friends is back from college.” Charlie’s voice sounded distant.

“Okay, will you have her call me when she gets back?” I couldn’t tell if he was lying to me or not, I guess I would find out later. I ignored Sam’s curious look. I’m telling you, the faces that this kid pulls off? Priceless.

“Sure, I have to go. I’m getting a call on the other line.” Charlie said in a rushed tone. The phone went dead before I could say goodbye.

“Is she there?” Sam asked looking into his beer bottle.

“No…” I eyed him suspiciously. “She was out.” I got up and studied his face; he refused to look me in the eyes. “You know something I don’t, don’t you?”

“I know a lot of things you don’t know Dean.” He laughed.

“Come on man, no secrets.” I crossed my arms over my chest and looked at him.

“I told Bella where our next hunt was.” He looked over at me finally.

“How could you do that? You knew she would follow us.” I couldn’t believe him. Bella’s only shot to stay alive was to go back to Charlie, now who knows where she could be, and the demon could be closing in on her.

“Dean, if the situation were reversed, would you have gone?” Sam had me there.

“She could be anywhere by now.” I started back towards the house. “Come on, we have to go find her before that demon does.”

“There’s a sure fire way to find her Dean.” Sam followed me, I turned to look at him, he was holding up his cell phone.

“I’m not going to do that, she won’t answer.” I turned back around and went into the house to find the keys to the crap-mobile.

“What is it with you and phones?” I assumed he was referring to that time that I ambushed him at Stanford in the middle of the night. “I’m calling her.”

Before I could stop him he already had the phone up to his ear.

“Hey Bells… Yeah, we bagged it, turns out it was a rakshasa. I know the name’s a mouth full. Where are you? Yeah, we ran into them a couple of days ago.”

“Where is she?” I asked; ‘we ran into them’ could be thousands of people, most of them deadly.

He looked at me and mouthed the word Ellen’s. I picked up the keys and motioned for him to get in the car.

I walked into Bobby’s study and I told him we were going to get Bella, and I was going to drive her to Charlie’s front door myself.

“Dean, you do that and she’s just going to keep coming back.” Bobby warned me.

“No she won’t, if I have to hand cuff her to Charlie then I’ll do it.” I left before he could give me more advice on how to handle my own sister.

“She’s staying at Ellen’s tonight.” Sam told me as I crammed into the crap-mobile.

“I just know that Jo is putting crap in her head about wanting to go hunting and going against Ellen’s wishes.” I sighed.

“Bella is older than her you know. It’s probably the other way around.” Sam started the car.

“I feel sorry for Ellen then.”

We started our trip to Nebraska at a little after midnight. It took us about eight hours to get there, Sam started complaining about food and he was driving. We were parked in front of Harvelle’s Roadhouse just as the sun started to rise.

“Dean please don’t blow your top okay?” Sam cautioned me.

I just looked at him, he knew that wasn’t a promise I could keep.

 

Bella POV

The air mattress wasn’t comfortable, but it was bearable. I got up and yawned, and then stretching I went over to the window. I always loved watching the sunrise, it was something that Charlie and I loved doing back home. Thinking about home and Charlie made me feel a little sad. I hated not being there with him, I know how much he needs me. But I enjoyed being with the boys, and as much as they hated to admit it, they needed me too. Speaking of the boys…

“Crap!” I snarled loudly.

“What?! What’s the matter?” Jo bolted out of the bed and was waving her small knife.

“My brother can’t keep his mouth shut, that’s what!” I glowered down at Sam. I should have known he wouldn’t keep my secret last night.

“Sam and Dean are back?” Jo questioned with concern in her voice.

I locked eyes with Dean and he started walking to the front door, my eyes narrowed as Sam looked at me with that ‘I’m sorry’ face that was supposed to make everything better. Jo followed me downstairs where Ellen was already confronting Dean.

“What are you two doing back here?”

“I came to pick up my sister. She seems to have gotten lost on the way to Washington and got stuck in Nebraska.” Dean’s voice was controlled but full of anger. If I didn’t know any better I would say that Dad was standing there barking orders. He noticed me coming down the stars, I halted in my place then we had a glaring contest.

Ellen looked between the two of us and then smirked. “This is going to take a lot of beer…”

 

“What in the hell were you thinking?” Dean was pissed but trying not to shout, his hands were trembling and when he picked up his beer he nearly tipped it over.

“Sam wasn’t supposed to rat me out!” I threw a glance at Sam. _How could you tell him?_

 _Bella, he has the right to know._ He looked at me sympathetically.

“Don’t blame this on Sam. I should have stayed there with you and made sure you got on that bus.”

“And I would have gone straight back to Bobby’s and waited on you there.” I was starting to get angry, how far was Dean willing to go to keep me away?

“What’s wrong with letting her go?” Jo protested from behind the bar.

“Jo, you stay out of this, this is between them.” Ellen cautioned.

“Bella, don’t make this any more difficult than it has to be.” Dean was starting to lose his grip on his calm.

“You are the one making this difficult. I want to help you kill the demon, why won’t you let me?”

“Because you might get killed and I can’t live with that!” He shouted. The whole room grew quiet; no one dared break the silence. “Charlie is a former hunter. He can protect you from anything that should come after you.”

“And do you think I want to condemn Charlie to death?” I slammed my fist down. “Dean, everywhere we go, death follows, and everyone that we have ever come into contact with could be used against us by this demon or the next or who knows what else! And frankly, I’m terrified of this thing. I know what it’s capable of and it gives me nightmares!”

Dean looked at me after my outburst with shock. It was something that I hadn’t told anyone, not even Sam. My new ability to see the past had been developing slowly, first it started off as dreams, like the first time Dad met Mom, and the first time Dean killed a monster. But I had also been having nightmares, just one recurring one actually. It started off like the old one, always at our house in Kansas, but then it transformed into me and Dad sitting in a dark room. I would ask Dad if he was ok, but instead of Dad it turned out to be the yellow-eyed demon possessing Dad.

“You!” I would yell and go for the gun that I stashed in my boot; I would aim it at his face. Then the scene would transform into that small cabin. The whole scene was frozen, Sam and Dean were both still up on the walls their faces were stuck in a mask of fear.

“You know that little pop gun ain’t gonna do squat to me right?” the demon would smile at me and walk closer to me. “Besides, Daddy’s still in here with me. You wouldn’t want to hurt him, would you?”

“Don’t you say anything about my father! He was a great man!” I cocked the gun, my hand was trembling slightly.

“I think I know your daddy better than you do.” He pointed to Dad’s head. “I’m inside his melon. And let me tell you, there is some stuff in here that you can only dream about.”

“Shut up!” I glowered at him.

“But I bet you can dream about his past right?”

“How did you–?”

“That doesn’t matter now. I just know that you and your brother are about to play parts in my grand scheme of things yet to come.”

“We don’t want to have any part of whatever you have going on.”

“But you will, soon you’ll find out.” He chuckled.

“Why are you being so cryptic all of a sudden?” I lowered the gun slightly.

“A good card player never reveals his hand until all the cards have been played.” He laughed softly as he moved closer to me. I stiffened as he took a piece of my loose hair in between his fingers. “And you my dear little Isabella will have a very important role to play later in this sordid tale.” He whispered into my ear.

I cringed away from him and pulled the trigger on the gun. But this point it was aimed at the same place I had shot Dad in the first place then the dream would fade away and I would wake up in a cold sweat.

After I explained this to Dean and Sam even Ellen and Jo were shocked into silence.

“How long have these been going on?” Dean choked out.

“Ever since the accident.” I whispered. “I can’t sleep anymore, because every time I close my eyes, I can see his face, those pale yellow eyes…. There is no way that Charlie could protect me from him. He wants me, and Sam.” I looked at Sam with tears in my eyes. “And I’m afraid that he’s going to come and take me and use me as bait to get you two to come out, just like he did with Dad.”

“Bella.” Sam sighed and then looked out the window. His face was twisted in pain. I wondered if he was having the same kind of nightmares.

“Why didn’t you tell us when they first started?” Dean had gotten control of his shock and the anger was completely gone from his voice.

I laughed humorlessly. “I thought they were normal, like post-traumatic stress, but I guess they are here to stay.”

“Well you don’t have to worry Bella.” Dean put his hand over mine. “We are going to find this thing and gank it before it can even think about getting to you or Sam.”

I closed my eyes tightly and found that the demon’s face was still there. “You aren’t the one that shot it in the leg, remember? I’m afraid of him Dean, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to see the life drain out of him when we finally get the Colt back and can shoot him right between the eyes.”

Dean let out a long sigh and looked like he was thinking about something. “Fine, if you won’t stay at Charlie’s, then I guess I can’t trust anyone else to keep you safe and out of trouble.” He smirked but I could see that his eyes were still affected by my nightmare bombshell.

“Thank you, Dean.” I breathed out a sigh of relief and hopped down from the bar stool to give him a hug.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s skip the chick flick moments.” He untangled himself from me. “Ellen, could I have another?”

Things settled down a little after that, Jo had taken my place beside Dean and they were sitting close together. I saw her look at me once and I mouthed ‘I knew you liked him!’ She smirked and rolled her eyes, it wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no either.

I had gone over to Sam. At first I was going to beat the crap out of him for telling Dean where I was but I couldn’t do that to him, he looked like he was scared out of his mind.

“I hope you aren’t too mad at me.” He laughed a little.

“Yeah, but I’ll get over it.” I punched him lightly on the arm. I had forgotten how tall he was, it was like looking at a giraffe some times. “Are you okay?”

“I'm alright.” He smiled a little “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I was handling it; I didn't think it was something to bother you with.” I stared out the window, trying not to blink.

“Bella, you gotta know when you can lean on us for help.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “And it wouldn't be bothering us. Dean and I are your brothers.”

“Lately killing the demon is all that you have talked about. I just figured that this could go on the back burner with all the other crap we have to deal with.” I smiled at him sadly.

“Damnit, I know we've been talking about the demon. That doesn't mean you're not important to us!” Sam shook me and he looked upset.

I could feel the tears coming on. “Then why didn't you fight harder to let me stay? You just let Dean send me away...” I thought he would fight for me, above anyone else I thought he would. But I was wrong.

“We needed to protect you. We've already lost Mom, and Dad. We can't lose you too.” Sam’s voice was thick with emotion.

“And I could have gotten on that bus and we could have wrecked, or if Charlie had to come and get me we could have been in a wreck, or any other crap could have happened. Do you think you can protect me from everything?” That was a low blow but it was true. I could die at any moment and I just wanted to spend time with my brothers doing something that actually worthwhile.

“I don't think I can protect you from everything. I'm trying to protect you from what I can.” Sam gritted his teeth.

“That's my point! Something could happen that's out of your control.” He just didn’t get it.

“What do you want me to say Bella?”

“I want you to let me come with you and Dean.” I hugged him tightly.

“He's already given you his blessing.” He was shocked by the hug but his voice came out in a monotone.

“I want you to _want_ me to come.” It wasn’t going to be a fun road trip with my brothers if they were both mad at me, Dean would get over his pouty mood in a few days and we could get back to the way we were, but Sam held on to things longer.

I could hear him sigh. “I'm not happy about this, but you can come with us.”

“Thank you Sam, that's all I wanted.”

The back door opened and we all turned to see a guy that looked to be around my age walking in to the bar holding a folder and a weird looking laptop, he had a mullet which I think should have stayed in the 80’s but on him it looked good. I assumed that this was the mystery man Jo was telling me about.

“Where you guys been? Been waitin’ for ya.” He grinned.

“We were working a job, Ash. Clowns.” Dean smirked as he looked at Sam.

 _Killer clowns? Seriously?_ I started laughing as I looked at Sam.

 _Shut up._ Sam glared at me out of the corner of his eyes. _I don’t want to talk about it._

“Clowns? What the f-” Ash started to reply but Dean cut him off.

“You got something for us, Ash?”

He put his stuff down on the table. Sam and I walked over to where he was and I watched as he started clicking away on the keyboard. I looked at the lap top closer and saw all the exposed wiring, it looked home made, but the guy did go to MIT right?

“Did you find the demon?” Sam sat down and tried to peak over the screen.

“It’s nowhere around. At least, nowhere I can find. But if this fugly bastard raises its head, I’ll know. I mean, I’m on it like Divine on dog dookie.”

I tried not to laugh; I was starting to like Ash.

“What do you mean?” Sam silenced me with a look.

“I mean, any of those signs or omens appear, anywhere in the world, my rig’ll go off. Like a fire alarm.”

“That’s amazing.” I breathed, Jo was right, he was a genius.

While Ash was talking Dean had started reaching for the laptop. “Do you mind?”

“Hey, what’s up, man?” He sighed as he let Dean see the laptop.

Sam was obviously nerding out over this piece of metal and wires. “Ash, where did you learn to do all this?”

Ash explained his story; it was mostly the same as what Jo told me last night.

“Okay. You give us a call as soon as you know something?” Dean passed the laptop back to Ash.

“Si, si, compadre.” Ash replied and then went back into his room.

Dean finished his beer and we all got up to leave.

“Hey, listen, if you boys need a place to stay I’ve got a couple beds out back.” Ellen offered, she really was a nice woman, I hoped we would be traveling through Nebraska more often.

“Thanks, but no. There’s something I gotta finish.” Dean replied as he walked out the door. Sam just bowed his head and waved at the girls.

“Thank you so much Ellen, Jo.” I smiled as I turned to leave.

“You’re welcome Bella, don’t be a stranger okay?” Ellen waved back.

“See you later Bella!” I heard Jo call.

We all crammed into the crap-mobile as Dean referred to it. The back seat was almost nonexistent.

“It’s a little snug in here.” I complained.

“Well that’s what you get when you run away from home.” Dean sighed. “Settle in and buckle up.”

 


	20. A New Way to Be Human

**Chapter 19: A New Way to Be Human**

“Oh baby…. I’ve missed you.” Dean had been sitting in the driver’s seat of the Impala caressing the steering wheel.

“Dean, if you don’t stop making out with the car I’m gonna puke.” I had watched him for a solid 30 minutes. “I mean you haven’t spent, like, every second restoring it.”

“You watch your mouth!” he glared as he pointed at me. I laughed as I shook my head and headed back into the house. I rolled my eyes as I heard him say, “She didn’t mean it baby….”

“Is he still out there with that car?” Sam asked me.

“Yup.” I made the ‘p’ pop; I opened the fridge and grabbed a beer.

“Unbelievable.” Sam huffed.

“So have you guys found anything case worthy?” I sat the beer down and Sam took it from me and replaced it with a Pepsi. “Seriously?”

 Bobby sighed and dragged some papers and flipped through them, some were local, and others were national. “Well, there’s a bunch of cult killings in New Jersey… a few murders here and there, nothing unusual about them though. Then there’s this.” He handed me a newspaper with the headline saying: More Cattle Mutilations and Decapitations Rock the Confused of Red Lodge

“Cattle mutilations? Sounds more like alien abductions than anything of ours.” I raised my eyebrow skeptically.

“Well, it’s all we got right now.” Sam shrugged his shoulders. “It wouldn’t hurt to check it out. Besides, when was the last time you heard of an alien abduction where they left severed heads behind?”

“Alright you guys go check it out, and make sure Casanova doesn’t get to third base with that hunk of metal and rubber out there?”

I laughed as I folded the newspaper up and followed Sam.

“We’ll try Bobby.” Sam threw up his hand and then we were off on another adventure.

Long story short, we looked into the cadavers first and found out that someone was taking out vampires. Then we went to a local bar to see if we could scope out the vamp gang. That’s where we met Gordon, talk about a creepy guy with a twisted back story. He was working on finding the vamps too; he met Dad once on a hunt and really admired him. We offered to help him out but he assured us that he could finish this case by himself. But then after we saved his ass from the vamps he agreed to let us help.

It was scary to see how Dean took out that vamp. It was like he enjoyed it _too_ much. Gordon was proud of Dean, but I agreed with Sam on this one, it was a little uncomfortable to decapitate something that still looks human. Vamps, other than demons, were the most human like things we had ever hunted; it was actually the last monster we hunted before Dad died.

Gordon treated Dean to drinks, Sam wouldn’t let me drink, jerk, so we went back to the hotel. He called Ellen, wanting to know if she knew Gordon. She told us that Gordon was a good hunter but he was dangerous to be around. Sam had just left to go get a drink when I was knocked out from behind and I blacked out. The next thing I know, we had been taken to the vamp nest and we were tied to chairs. My blood ran cold when one of them almost took out Sam, but thankfully their leader stopped him.

She tried to explain to us that her coven wasn’t killing anyone; they were responsible for all the cattle mutilations. Who knew that vamps could live off other types of blood? Sam was quick to judge but I sat and listened intently, I had never met a monster that tried to rebel against its nature, it was kind of fascinating. Lenore told us that it was the only way they could survive undetected. It made sense in a weird way. Cattle go missing all the time, usually it’s by an animal attack, but if I was a vampire, I guess I would do the same thing.

All she wanted was to escape town and for us not to follow them. I guess she thought we were more reasonable than Dean and Gordon; we tended to see things more in the grey area than everything being in black and white. But Sam still insisted on the fact she could be lying, so to prove that she was honest, she let us go, no questions asked. They put bags back on our heads so that we couldn’t see their lair or where it was located.

When we got back to the motel we noticed that Gordon’s car was parked beside the impala and walked in the room to see Dean and Gordon looking over a map trying to find the nest. Sam tried to convince Dean to honor Lenore’s wishes of wanting to go peacefully. But Dean argued that if it was a monster it was our job to kill it, and then Sam countered that it was our job to stop evil things, not just monsters.

I tried to help Sam, it seemed like Lenore wanted to be left alone, she wasn’t killing humans, so why not let her try out this new lifestyle? It might work out that she could help other vampires turn over a new leaf as well, if not, then we would kill them. But Dean wasn’t having it then Sam came in with the low blow about Dean using Gordon to replace Dad. That ended with me going to the ice machine and getting some ice for Sam to put on his bruising cheek.

We went back to the room to find that Gordon was gone; we assumed that he was going after the vamps. Sam and Dean were still going at each other when we got into the car and headed to the bridge we had crossed over, to get to the nest. Sam hadn’t been just twiddling his thumbs when we were blindfolded; he had memorized the entire route based on how the ride felt.

When we had gotten to the house, which that’s what it was a house, I figured they would all be living in a damp basement or something creepy, we found Gordon torturing Lenore with dead man’s blood,  toxic to vamps. I swallowed back the bile as Sam looked on dumbfounded and Dean asked what was going on. Gordon was trying to make Lenore tell him were the other vampires were. When Dean saw how many cuts there were on Lenore he finally realized what Gordon was doing was wrong.

Sam convinced Gordon to stop torturing her, so he picked up a machete so that he could kill her. He even made a joke that he had just sharpened it so it was completely humane, like she was a dog. Sam moved to let Lenore go, I was going to go help him but Dean grabbed me at the same time that Gordon turned the knife on Sam. Dean tried to reason with him again, saying that the vamp that killed his sister deserved to die. Then Gordon finally told us the truth that his sister had been turned and that he had killed the vamp and his own sister.

Gordon totally overlooked the fact that Lenore’s coven was trying to fight their nature, he just wanted to kill them all. He said that vamps couldn’t change who they were, and he tried to show it by grabbing Sam’s arm and slicing it open then he held his bleeding hand over Lenore’s head. Dean and I held our guns on Gordon and we played a little Mexican standoff. Gordon squeezed Sam’s arm and as the blood started dripping in her mouth, I saw her human façade completely change into vamp mode, but then she resisted, it was amazing to watch, she was in so much pain and had temptation staring her straight in the face, and she still fought against nature. It was amazing.

Gordon let go of Sam, his expression incredulous. Dean kept his gun trained on Gordon as he told me to go help Sam get Lenore out of there. Sam picked her up and carried her out of the house; I pulled of a piece of my shirt and tried to clean the blood off of her face and body, hers and Sam’s. She tried to thank us over and over again but we assured her that she didn’t need to thank us.

“We don’t want to be killers, we want to save humans.” She managed to get out through labored breaths. “None of us asked to be blood thirsty monsters, we…”

“It’s ok Lenore, you shouldn’t talk, rest.” I ordered as I found a water hose outside and washed the piece of cloth and started cleaning her face.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” She sounded delirious.

“I’m just trying to be a little more human, like you.” I smiled. She smiled weakly back in return.

Sam drove to the place that Lenore had told her coven to meet and they were grateful to us for helping Lenore.

“I would never have suspected two hunters that would lay down their lives for one of our kind, we will be eternally grateful.” Eli, the one who had taken a snap at Sam when we had been captured offered his hand to Sam.

“Lenore is a great leader; she has a lot of ideas.” Sam smiled at her. She smiled back, her self-healing had kicked in and she barely had a scratch on her now. “But if any of you fall off the band wagon, we won’t hesitate next time.”

“Trust me, drinking cow’s blood isn’t ideal, but it’s worth it to remain inconspicuous.” Lenore replied.

We stood there and watched as they all piled into their various vehicles and set off for a new town.

“I wonder if they’ll be ok.” I shoved my hands in my pocket as I watched the last car fade into the horizon. “I wonder if they will be able to really change.”

“Bella,” Sam huffed. “I don’t know what to think anymore.” Sam put his arm around me and we walked back to the impala.

 


	21. Dances with Demons

**Chapter 20: Dances With Demons**

From then on cases just got weirder and weirder… We started meeting more kids like Sam and me; one was a set of twins who had psychic powers of persuasion. One of them swindled Dean out of the impala. Come to find out the guy who ‘stole’ Dean’s car had an evil twin who was making people kill themselves, like I said weird.

Then we met up with Jo, who had left the Roadhouse against Ellen’s wishes, she made Ash lay a false credit card trail so her mom couldn’t find her. I may have to keep that and use it later…. She had found a case in Philadelphia that actually turned out to be the ghost of Dr. H. H. Holmes, America’s first serial killer.

Then came the fun times when we were arrested…. Dean didn’t do a good job of covering his tracks; he was wanted in St. Louis for a bunch of murders actually carried out by a shifter. The cops grilled us separately for hours. They tried to pit Sam and me against Dean. They said we could get a lesser sentence if we sold him out. I, not very politely, said that I wouldn’t sell out my own flesh and blood brother. That case ended up being a vengeful spirit who was trying to tell us who killed her and that was the first time I had ‘fake died’.

At that point the real monster hunt began again, with demons, and not just any demons, crossroads demons. It started out as a black dog case; the people who had killed themselves had reported that they had seen dogs chasing them on earlier occasions.

Turns out all the Vics had one thing in common; they had all been at a bar 10 years ago. When we went to the bar we found that it was situated near a crossroads, and there were plants planted by the intersection that were used in summoning rituals. Dean walked into the center of the crossroads and dug up a tin box containing the ingredients to summon a crossroads demon, these weren’t just any black dogs they were hellhounds, used to collect the souls of people who had made deals with demons.

The picture in the tin box was a man who had summoned and made a deal with a demon for artistic talent, he was the one who started it all. Apparently the demon stayed at the bar for a week and made deals with three other people, two of which were already dead. We offered to stay and protect the painter but he was resigned to dying so we wished him luck and raced to find the last guy on the hellhound’s hit list.

The last guy, Evan, admitted that he had made a deal, but it wasn’t what we expected, he wanted to save his wife who was dying from cancer. Dean suggested that we summon the demon and try to exorcise it while Sam and I protected Even. I mean yeah, the guy made a deal but he had good intentions, those other guys wished for fame and fortune and only focused on themselves, this guy didn’t deserve to die.

Sam, however, didn’t like the plan. He asked Dean if he thought that Dad had made a deal with the Yellow-Eyed Demon for Dean’s life. I stood up for Dad saying that there was no way he would make a deal with a demon for anything, and for Sam not to insult his memory. But then we heard the unmistakable howl of hellhounds and there was no more time to argue. Sam and I stayed with Evan and Dean went back to the bar to summon the demon.

We goofer dusted, natural hellhound repellent, the doors and windows in Evan’s office and all three of us stepped into a protective circle.

“Do you think Dean’s gonna make a deal to bring Dad back?” I asked Sam, that was what his hinting earlier translated into for me.

“I hope he’s not that stupid.” Sam tried to laugh it off but there was real concern mixed in with it. “Here.” He tossed me his pistol. “That little toothpick knife of yours won’t do jack squat against hellhounds.”

That was when it came for us. It was snarling and trying to break down the door to Evan’s office. Sam and I trained our guns on the door and I tried to ignore the sniveling little heap that Evan had become behind us. Then after a few minutes, the growling stopped and the door remained still. Sam and I were diligent, never letting our guard down. Then Evan turned to a vent and it burst open, but nothing was there to see. Then the chair that was in front of the vent was knocked across the room and the snarling began again. How were we supposed to shot something we couldn’t see?

The hellhound was barking viciously and we looked everywhere for it, but then we saw claw-like gouges in the floor headed straight for the goofer ring around us. Then a gust of wind came through the vent, scattering a stack of papers on Evan’s desk, I was afraid that it was going to disturb the goofer line, we were all going to die because of a little gust of wind. We took off down the hall and into a room; I realized that it was the laundry room, i.e. nothing useful to use to deter a hellhound. I helped Sam hold the door shut as the hellhound pounded relentlessly on it and Evan watched us in horror.

And then all of a sudden, it just stopped, Sam and I were both breathing heavily, still wary that the attack was over. Dean must have made headway on his end of the hunt; he must have summoned the demon. I silently hoped that he wouldn’t make a deal for his soul. We stayed locked in the laundry room until Dean came back, he had said that Evan’s contract was ripped up and we could leave.

“What about you Dean?” Sam followed Dean outside. I was about to follow them when Evan stopped me.

“Thank you.” He grabbed my arm and gave me a relieved smile. I bet that was the first time in 10 years that he had really genuinely smiled.

“You are welcome Evan.” I smiled back. “Try to stay out of trouble.”

I walked outside and climbed into the back seat, and we headed down the road. Dean had told us everything that had happened at the bar, how he had summoned the demon and she taunted him the whole time about how Dad was being tortured in Hell.

“Demon’s lie all the time right?” Sam’s shocked question came out. “Maybe she was lying.”

Dean huffed. “Come on is that really what you think?” He glanced over at Sam and then back at the road. “How could he do it?” he muttered a few minutes later.

“He did it for you.” Sam stared straight ahead.

“He would have done it for any of us.” I put my hand on Dean’s shoulder.

“Exactly. How am I supposed to live with that?” Dean asked in a chagrined tone. “You know the thought of him, where ever he is right now… I mean he spent his whole life chasing that yellow-eyed son of a bitch. He should have gone out fighting. That was supposed to be his legacy, you know? Not bargaining with the damn thing. Not this.”

I sat in silence in the back seat, letting Dean get this off of his chest, it was so rare to see him take down all the walls and talk about his feelings. But he was alluding to the fact that he wasn’t worth saving.

“How many people do you think Dad saved total?” Sam chimed in.

“That’s not the point, Sam.” Dean argued, but there was no hate in his voice, only self-loathing.

“Evan Hudson is safe because of what Dad taught us.” Sam refused to be ignored. “That’s his legacy, Dean. Now, we’re still here, man, so we got to keep going. For him.”

“Sam’s right, Dean.” I added. “Don’t focus on why he made the deal, the main thing is that the yellow-eyed demon took someone else we loved away from us, and we have to find him before he kills again.”

Dean eyed me from the rear view mirror and then looked back at the road.

“Dean?” Sam asked.

“Yeah?”

“When you were trapping that demon, you weren’t…” Sam never finished his sentence, I knew he didn’t want to say it but it was on both of our minds. “I mean it was all a trick, right? You never considered making that deal, right?” We both waited for Dean’s answer holding our breath.

But he never answered, which was as good enough as a yes to me. There had been some old blues song that was playing and Dean switched it to a rock band station. Sam didn’t ask any more questions, and I was too stunned to ask any. I still couldn’t believe that Dad made a deal for Dean’s life. I also couldn’t understand why Dean was moping about it. Dad loved us enough to die for us, it was something we were all prepared for but something we never wanted to consider. And then there’s the fact that Dean thought about making a deal to bring Dad back.

I fell asleep in the back seat, that conversation had really drained me emotionally and nearly being killed by an invisible dog and no Scooby snacks to give it drained me physically. When I closed my eyes I was assaulted by the yellow eyed demon again, but this time he wasn’t in Dad, he was riding some other guy.

“It’s sad to think your Daddy sold his soul to me isn’t it Izzy?” he smirked.

“Go to Hell.” I spat back. The last person I wanted to see right now was this guy.

“Already been sweetheart.” He sat down at the table and an empty cup and poured himself a drink. “Please, sit down, we need to talk.”

“I don’t have anything to say to you.” I stood my ground looking down at my boot.

“Oh don’t bother going for those weapons, I’ve already taken care of them.” He mused over his glass. I looked up at him and then back down, the knife that I usually hide there was gone, then I reached behind me to where I had stashed Sam’s pistol and it was gone. “Looking for this?” I looked back up at him and he was twirling Sam’s gun around his finger. “I said I wanted to talk. Now I have all the cards so you can’t shoot me, and you have to talk.”

I glared at him and slowly sat down. I tried to ignore the pleading looks from my brothers who were still pinned to the walls, this nightmare had happened so much that all I had to do was concentrate enough and I could block them out completely.

“Now was that so hard Izzy?” He talked to me like I was a five year old.

“What do you want?” I asked in a hollow voice. “What could you possibly want to talk about?”

“I want to talk about you, and your brothers, and how I casted you in my little play on world domination.”

“I have nothing to say to you, you son of a bitch!” I balled up my fist and slammed the table.

“Such violent language, now I know John raised you.” He smirked.

“Don't you DARE mention my Dad!” I launched myself across the table and grabbed him by the shirt collar.

“No need to be so hostile.” His voice was still calm.

“What are you doing here?” I ignored his pleasant tones.

“I already told you, to talk about my plans for you and to clear up some loose ends.”

“What loose ends?” I let go of his collar and sat back down. My skin crawled as I tried to ignore how terrified he made me feel.

“Well, your father for one... his death was such a tragedy...” He said with an underlying mocking tone.

“I know that Dad made a deal with you, skip the gritty details.” I glared at him.

“Your father only wanted to give me the Colt you know... but I made him 'up the price' so to speak.”

“I said stop talking about him.” I gritted my teeth. “You don't have the right to say anything about him.”

“Fine, if you don’t want to know the truth then I won’t force you.” He got up and walked around the table.

“The truth about what?” I asked warily.

“Have you ever wondered what happened to your mother? Why your Daddy was on this tireless crusade?” He whispered in my ear. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

“I know what happened. You burned her to death!” Tears stung in my eyes.

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yes but what happened _before_ that.”

“What?” What could he possibly show me that would explain this?

“Let me take you on trip down memory lane.” He whispered. The scene transformed into a new setting. It was a nursery; a thought was tugging at the corner of my mind like I had been here before.

“What is this?” I looked around.

“Look familiar?” He motions to the crib. There were two sitting head to toe; one had a blue blanket, the other pink.

“John? Are they hungry?” I heard a woman ask from outside the nursery.

“Is this...?” I couldn’t speak as I watched a second demon come into the room; I noticed the familiar yellow eyes.

“Yes it is.” The yellow-eyed demon beside me smiled as we watched his former self take out a knife and slit his arm. He let his blood drip into the pink crib. I walked over to the crib and realized that it was me! My baby self’s eyes flashed yellow for a second before returning to green.

“We have demon blood in us?” I asked in a horrified tone as I watched the demon go over to Sam’s crib.

“It's better than a mother’s milk.” He grinned evilly at me.

“John?” I turned to see a woman with long blonde hair enter the room; she was wiping the sleep from her eyes.

“Mom?” I managed to push the word out of my mouth. She was so beautiful, Dean’s description of her paled in comparison. I had waited for this moment for a long time, to finally see her again.

“Shush.........” I glared at the younger yellow-eyed demon; he put his finger to his lips and silenced her. He turned to Mom and smiled.

“You…” She glared.

“Hello Mary, nice to see you again.” He flicked his hand and Mom hit the wall, rising up as she whimpered in fear, she looked to the cribs.

“Mom no!” I realized in terror that this was the last time that I would see Mom, this is where she died.

“She can't hear you.” The present demon sat back and watched.

I watched as mom was suspended on the ceiling. A gasp escaped her lips as a gash appeared on her stomach and she screamed in pain.

“Mary!!!!” I heard Dad call from down below.

“STOP IT!” I screamed I didn’t want to see this; I didn’t want to see my mother die.

The demon smiled as his past-self disappeared.

A younger version of Dad busted into the room, confused and after a second, he walked to the cribs. “Hey Sammy… Bells”

“Please stop this...” I was choking back sobs.

Dad noticed the blood and looked up to find Mom on the ceiling. Then she busted into flames as Dad screamed for her.

I crouched on the ground, covered my ears and closed my eyes “Make it stop!” I screamed. I heard dean come in and Dad giving him me and Sam before he screamed for Mom again.

“I thought you'd wanna know.”  The demon smirked.

I could hear Sam’s familiar voice as he called out my name.

“Noooo, please! Stop! Not her!” I moaned. Then I screamed as loud as I ever had and I was jolted back into reality.

“Bella! Wake up! Are you okay? It looked like you were having a nightmare.” I looked up to see Dean turned around in the front seat to stare at me worry was written all over his face.

I couldn’t hold in in any longer. I started to sob, images of the nightmare haunting me, the demon, Mom’s face, Dad’s agony.

“Sam, pull over.” Dean ordered.

Sam pulled over to the shoulder of the road and turned to look at me. “Bella, what's wrong?”

I was still shaking and gasping for air, I couldn’t speak.

“Bella, tell me what's wrong.” His voice was worried then he put his hand on my shoulder.

“It was just a nightmare....” I tried to play it off; I had nightmares all the time now so it didn’t bother me. I got out of the car and tried to start breathing normally.

“A normal nightmare can't cause a reaction like that. You were screaming like you were being tortured!” Sam followed me and walked in front of me. He crossed his arms.

“Just drop it okay?! I don't want to talk about it.” I remembered Mom’s tortured face.

“Bella...” Dean got out of the car last and stood beside me

“Just take me back to Bobby's, take me home...” I hugged my chest tightly.

“No, not until you tell us what happened.” Dean put his hand on my shoulder.

“I had a dream about the demon, just like all the rest, but this time it was different.” I couldn’t look at them; I stared down at the dirt.

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

“He... he taunted me about Dad and... he showed me what happened when Mom...” I let out a choked sob. “when she died.”

“What did he show you? In detail.” Sam pressed me further.

“He... he fed us his blood...”  My breath hitched “Mom came in... she knew him. I don't know how. Then he pinned her to the ceiling and killed her.” A tear fell down my cheek. I wiped it away with shaking hands.

“Why are you making her relive that?” Dean smacked him on the arm.

“We needed to know Dean.” Sam replied, still in shock over the blood.

 _You know something don’t you?_ I saw a glimpse of my dream in his head, but it was he was there instead of me. He didn’t respond.

“Bella, it’s going to be fine.” Dean grabbed me in a hug.

“I want to get to Bobby's. Now. That demon is going to pay.” I cried into Dean’s leather jacket.

“’Kay Bells. Are you sure you're okay?” Dean checked again.

“I’m okay, I just want to gank the little sucker... and if either of you tries to keep me away, I'll cut off your favorite appendage.” I pushed away and held up my knife threateningly.

Dean’s eyes widened “No! Not my babies...” and ran back to the car.

“Gross Dean...” I dry heaved as I followed him back to the car.

“Way to kill a moment dude.” Sam said as he got into the passenger side.

“She started it!” Dean replied in a whining tone.

 


	22. Death at Cold Oak

**Chapter 21: Death at Cold Oak**

After my last nightmare they faded back into the normal nightmares. I had gotten to the point that every time it started I would just shoot him in the leg and get it over with. He had nothing left to say to me.

We took on more cases; they seemed to be getting increasingly difficult. First there was the demon Croatoan virus, then our ‘friend’ Gordon caught up with us and tried to kill Sam and me… fun times.

Then there was the time in Peoria, Illinois where the ghost of a little girl was trying to kill another little girl in a motel that her mother had bought, and dealt with a shape shifter who loved committing robberies by using an employee’s skin, and then there was a ghost that had an angel complex, and then….

You get the idea…

It wasn’t until late April early May when things started to pick up with our demonic friend. We had stopped at a diner that looked more like a dive but Dean was hungry. He was grumbling about pie so Sam and I walked in to get some grub.

When we walked in there was a man who was wiping up the counter and then we saw the massacre in side. There were dead bodies everywhere; we heard the lock snap in the door behind us.

“Sam?” I asked in a worried tone.

“It’s gonna be ok Bella…” Sam went for the gun that was hidden in his jacket.

“Why tell the girl that? In a couple of hours you might be dead.” The man at the counter laughed and he looked up to reveal his yellow eyes.

“You!” I growled stepping in front of Sam. “Let’s finish it here and now!”

“And spoil the other’s fun?” He grinned.

“Other’s, what other’s?” Sam asked.

“The other kids like us.” I assumed from all of his hinting and cryptic little comments, they were all starting to click together.

“Correct Bella, you get the grand prize!” the demon grinned. “Who’s ready for a little trip?”

And the next thing I knew I woke up alone in a deserted town.

“Sam?!” I called out. “Dean?!” I started running through the town like a mad woman trying to find him. That demon scared the crap out of me and zapped me to this place where I couldn’t find my brothers, I was totally alone.

Thankfully after a few minutes of frantic searching I found Sam along with Andy, another kid like us who had a twin brother named Anseem that we had to kill a few months ago, and then together we found Ava, she was another kid that we had met that had visions about people dying, sort of like Sam. It had been about five months since we saw her last. When we rescued her from a store house that she had been locked in we met our fellow competitors.

Jake Talley was a soldier that was taken away from active duty in Afghanistan; he looked like a serious fighter, one to watch out for, and the fact that his power was being super strong didn’t help our odds. Then there was a girl named Lily, making our little group even amongst Boys vs. Girls. Lily’s power was people’s hearts stopped when she touched them, mental note to self, make sure she never touches you…

Ava and Andy were the only ones who believed Sam and me about the demon being behind this, the others must not have had contact with the demon because I had never met them before, that was until an acheri demon attacked Jake. Then he turned and asked us what to do.

“We’re gonna give you an extreme crash course in weaponry.” I grinned.

Somehow during our search for weapons and provisions in this town we lost Lily. She didn’t want to be here in the first place so that was fine with me; I hoped she found her way home. But my hopes were crushed when we saw her hanging from the old windmill in the center of town, dead as a doornail. Ava and I shed a tear for her and then went back to work setting up salt lines. Sam came over to check our progress and told me that he had tried to get a message out to Dean through Andy via a vision. I wished that it would work.

“One more hunter on our side would make me feel better.” I looked at Ava as I was saying this, she had been acting strange after we had told her about her fiancée getting sliced up, which was understandable, but there was something else wrong with her, call it woman’s intuition but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Sam noticed my stare.

_Is something wrong?_

_I hope not._ I frowned.

Once the salt lines were in place we decided that our best option was to sit and wait for anything that might come for us, due to Lily’s demise we assumed that the demon didn’t want us leaving so we pondered what he could possibly want with us. Jake agreed to take the first watch and told the rest of us to get some sleep.

I was jolted awake in what seemed like only a few minutes later by Jake yelling at us to wake up and to let us know that Ava was missing. The three of us separated and went out to look for her while Andy elected to stay behind just in case she comes back. After about an hour of searching I gave up and walked back to the house, I didn’t particularly feel friendly towards her, but if this was going to be a fight to the death, the less players on the board the better.

I noticed Sam had a haunted look on his face, I tried to ask about it but he replied via mind link that he would tell me about it later.

When I got back Andy was lying on the floor, guts pulled out and blood everywhere and Ava was crumpled at Jake’s feet, neck broken.

“What in the world is going on here?” I couldn’t believe that the killing games had started already.

“Ava killed Andy.” Sam explained. “She has been here ever since the last time we saw her. Developing her powers, and gaining control over demons, she summoned one here but Jake caught her by surprise.”

Sam and I started trying to gather supplies to try and break out of the town when he finally explained what was going on.

“You had a dream about the demon?” I asked quietly.

“Yeah, he said that we were brought here to fight to the death, the last one standing would take control of his army.”

I laughed humorlessly. “It kinda brings the Hunger Games into a new light.”

“I know if we could just get out of here and try to find Dean…”

“Not ‘we’, Sam. Only one of us is getting out of here. I’m sorry.” Jake really looked like he was sorry. He was standing behind us an iron bar in his hands, Sam and I drew our weapons.

After a few tense moments we all laid down our weapons but then Jake punched Sam and he was sent flying off across the field and crashed to the ground. Jake picked up his iron bar and Sam’s knife and started stalking me. I barely had enough time to grab my own knife and stumble backwards.

“I’m sorry about this Bella, really I am.”

“Jake please, you don’t have to do this.” I started crying.

Just then Sam charged Jake and sent them both rolling to the ground punching each other. Desperate to help I see a piece of iron bar that Jake had been using and knocked Jake out. He let go of Sam and was knocked out cold. Sam grabbed the bar from me and had it poised over Jake’s chest ready for the kill strike but he just couldn’t do it, heck, I couldn’t make myself do it either.

“Sam, Bella!” Dean's voice called from the darkness. I felt a rush of relief flow through my veins. I ran towards the voice Sam close behind me. My older brother was walking along with Bobby, guns at the ready. Sam looked over at me as he opened his mouth to speak.

“Dean!” he called out.

“Sam look out!” Dean suddenly roared. My eyes snapped to my twin. Jake was sneaking up behind him and before I could scream out a warning, the knife in his hand ripped into Sam's back. Sam let out a shocked groan and his scream of pain was cut off by the gurgling sound of blood filling his lungs. His back arched in pain, eyes sending out waves of agony. I didn't even realize our elder brother was screaming. The knife was ripped from Sam's spine and the filthy piece of crap turned and ran.

 

It was like I was in a dream; I couldn’t get my legs to move fast enough, I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing, I couldn’t save my brother, I couldn’t do anything, I was helpless.

Dean sprinted to Sam as his knees buckled and he swayed, breathless groans escaping his lips. Dean grabbed him by his jacket as Bobby raced by him, after Jake. I felt fast tears streaming and I rushed to my twin's side.

“Sam!” Dean exclaimed, Sam's head falling onto his shoulder. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Sam! Sam!” he breathed, steadying Sam against his body.”

 _Sam?_ I reached out with my thoughts his response was garbled mush, it was hard to make out words. _Sammy it will be ok._

“Whoa, whoa, Sam. Sam! Hey!” Dean ground out as he pulled Sam closer. “Let me look at you,” he soothed. Dean reached behind Sam's back. My stomach churned as he pressed his hand to the wound. When his palm pulled away, I caught sight of the blood soaking Dean's palm. My big brother's breath hitched. I put my hands to my mouth and shook my head in disbelief and anger.  _I’ll kill him…_

“Hey, look at me. It’s not even that bad. It’s not even that bad, all right?” Dean soothed. Sam's eyes were almost closed, his mouth open. “Sammy? Sam! Hey, listen to me. We’re gonna patch you up, okay? You’re gonna be good as new. I’m gonna take care of you. I’m gonna take you care of you. I’ve got you. That’s my job, right? Watch out for my pain-in-the-ass little brother?” Sammy's eyes slipped shut. “Sam? Sam! Sammy!” As Dean was trying to get Sam wake up I couldn't think. A loud sob escaped my throat as I saw Sam's entire body slumping forward onto Dean as I heard his breathing hitch and I gasped as no breath followed. My hands were frozen with fear as I was powerless to save my brother.

I couldn’t save him, but there was something that I can do.

“Bella!” I heard Dean yell at me. “Get back here!”

 

But I was already running in the direction that Jake had turned tail and run. I quickly ducked behind one of the buildings as I heard Bobby running back towards Dean. I listened for a few seconds to see if I was being pursued but no one came. I pulled my silver hunting knife out of my boots and went into a stalking crouch. Jake was going to die, tonight, by my hand, or I was going to die trying.

When I couldn’t find him I started shouting, drawing him out.

“Jake! I’m here! Come out and get me!” No one answered. “If I got this right, you have to be the last one standing, last time I checked, I’m still standing!”

“Bella?!” I heard Dean shouting. “Bella where are you?!”

“This is not your fight Dean!” I cried. “Please stay out of this!”

Then several things happened at once. Dean came around the corner his worried face turned to relief then turned to horror as my world went black.

“I’m really sorry about this Bella.” Jake whispered in my ear as he shoved the blade into my chest and twisted it. I screamed out in pain as I gripped Jake’s arm tightly. He growled at the pain of my fingernails and tried to twist out of my hold. He drew the blade out swiftly and took off. I was spun around and started to fall backwards when Dean’s strong arms caught me.

“Bella! BELLA!” Dean cried out. “Oh God please Bella!”

It felt like my chest was on fire. I was struggling to breathe, much less talk but I started talking anyway.

“Dean?” I forced out. “Is Sam–?”

“Bella stop talking. It’s gonna be ok. We’re going to be ok.” I felt Dean’s face at my forehead and his hot tears hitting my face and hair. “Come on, we’ll get you over to Bobby and he’ll fix you right up, don’t you worry.” I winced a little as he picked me up and I was slowly losing my grip on life and was falling into darkness. “D-Dean?”

“Shh…. It’s going to be ok, I promise.” I was struggling to keep his face in focus but I was losing consciousness.

“S-sorry Dean,” I managed to gasp before the world went dark completely.

 


	23. Family Ties

**Chapter 22: Family Ties**

**Dean POV**

I got back in the car and wiped the demon spit off of my face, I think she enjoyed that a little bit more than I did.

I did what I had to do. For her sake, I hoped she kept up with her end of the deal, ‘cause if not, she was the first thing I was going to gank after…

No, don’t think about that… focus on getting back to the house and checking on them. I hoped they didn’t wake up before I could get there, it might be a little confusing… Maybe I should pick up a ‘Hey, you were dead for a few days!’ card from the Hallmark store.

My phone rang and I looked at the caller id, it was Bobby’s home number. I sighed, silenced the ringer and threw the phone back in the passenger side. I didn’t want to talk to him; he worried about me too much. Ever since Cold Oak he’s been ribbing me about burning the bodies and ‘moving on with my life’ but I couldn’t do that, Sam and Bella were my younger siblings, I couldn’t just let them die.

I looked in the rearview mirror and remembered seeing Sam and Bella, just lying there in the back seat. Bobby was trying to get me to focus and drive to the nearest hospital, but I knew there was no saving them the ‘normal’ way anymore. They were both gone. So against Bobby’s wishes I stopped at the first abandoned house that I could find and we took them in.

Bobby left a few minutes later, calling me an idgit that being one of the nicer words he used. I spent the first few hours staring blindly at the wall, wondering how we had gotten here. I mean back at the beginning everything seemed so much simpler than this: You see a monster, you kill it, end of story, period. Of course at the end of the day, it all came down to the Yellow Eyed demon, for dad anyway. For me, it was kinda nice to see the people we had saved the night before on our way out of town, smiling, waving at us…. Happy.

It made me feel like we had done something that actually meant something, that we were helping people, that we were super heroes. Every time I told that to a little rug-rat I nearly believed myself, but then we had to gank grandma and that idea kinda gets thrown out the window…

Yeah, at the end of the day we’re monster hunters, in some ways we are kinda like super heroes, but sometimes we don’t make it in time. Like me when I couldn’t protect my little brother and sister.

That brings me to my latest decision that I will probably hear crap about, but as long as they never find out, I won’t have to hear about it. I slammed the door to the Impala with a little more force than necessary and walked up on the porch to find a brown sack with some crappy take-out food that Bobby thought I would like with a note attached to it. ‘Hope you come to your senses Dean, Bobby’

I balled up the note and walked inside. I sat the bag down on the table and sat down, the table was big enough for four people to sit down and have Christmas dinner and there I sat with my small brown bag dinner that Bobby had thought to get me so that I wouldn’t starve to death out here. I sighed as I opened it; on the top was a beer, followed by a burger from some fast food joint and some fries. I frowned at the food, and popped open the beer.

So this is what my life consisted of now? Always being alone? Never having anyone to share in my successes and failures?

I was going to give that demonic hellspawn one hour, if they weren’t back by then; she just signed her death warrant.

Then I heard a sound coming from the other room. I tensed up and reached for my gun.

**Sam POV**

“Sam? Bella?” I heard Dean call out. I had just wailed on Jake and was about to stab him but hearing Dean’s voice made me stop. I dropped the iron bar and started running towards his voice.

“Dean?!” I called back. Bella was in front of me she must have taken off before me, then the next thing I knew there was this searing pain in my back and then I heard something snap and then it was over, I was in darkness for a while, it wasn’t so bad, there was no more pain, but there was also nothing. Then I saw this white light drifting towards me and a deep angelic voice told me that it ‘was not yet my time’ and I woke up gasping for air.

I looked around, it was a shabby looking room, probably abandoned for years, the perfect place for Dean to hide out in, but where was he? He must have left to go get some food while he just left me here sleeping so he wouldn’t have to pay for it, cheapskate… Although Bella wouldn’t let him do that, she would stick up for me. So I decided to stretch my legs and look around. Then I saw Bella, lying next to me, sleeping. No she wasn’t sleeping, she was….

“Bella?” I pushed the name out in shock. I reached over to touch her, my hand was trembling. “Bella are you.... No...” I saw the dried blood covering her blouse and tried to swallow around the knot that was in my throat “Dean!” My breath hitched.

Just then her eyes snapped open and she looked directly at me, she was in shock. “Sammy?” she asked quietly.

“Bella!” My voice was filled with relief; I crossed the table and hugged her we both winced at our wounds.

“What happened? The last thing I remember was you dying....” Bella’s voice faded out towards the end.

“I was dead?” Had Jake killed me? I should have made sure he was dead before I left him.

“Yeah, Jake stabbed you in the back. I watched you die in Dean's arms.” She was still in shock; she crossed her arms tightly around herself.

“How can I be alive? Bella... you were dead too.” As long as I lived, I would never get that image out of my head, Bella being dead.

“I remember Jake coming up in front of me but that was it...” She looked down at her shirt and gasped slightly.

“Bella… Sammy?”

We both turned to see Dean lowering his gun and staring at us.

“Dean!” Bella jumped off the table and ran over and hugged him.

He was still in shock, but hugged her back.

“What in the hell happened Dean?” If we both died, how were we topside again, something didn’t add up and I had a sinking feeling that Dean was involved in it someway.

“I don't know.” Dean replied looking guiltily down at the floor, he hugged Bella a little tighter.

“Does it matter? We're back, all in one piece.” Bella shot me a warning glare; she didn’t want me to screw up her happy family reunion.

“Yeah it matters. Dean... what did you do?” I asked him outright.

“Nothing! I've been doing my job!” He fumed.

“Dean.... please tell me you didn't do anything stupid.” He was hiding something and I was going to find out what.

“I didn't do anything stupid.”

But he couldn’t fool me. It was obvious from his expression he was lying.

“Yeah? Then look me in the eyes and tell me that you didn't try and bring us back.”

“I'm not that smart Sammy.” He smirked.

Sam doubted he was telling the truth but I let it go, for now. We had more important issues to deal with.

“Did you kill Jake for me?” Bella asked hopefully.

“Jake got away...” Dean’s voice was full of venom.

That being one of those more important issues.

“Damn it.” Bella grinded her teeth.

“He took off into the woods. I was busy trying to get Sam to stay awake...” He looked at me and it was like I could see the scene play out in his eyes.

“We'll get him Bella, I have a feeling that if the demon was involved that Jake won’t be far behind.” I was certain of that. Whatever army he was cooking up, Jake was the leader now that he killed off the rest of us.

“Yeah...” She sighed and looked at the floor.

“What'd you remember?” Dean asked curiously.

“I saw you guys running at me and I felt this pain, like white hot... nothing else.” I left out the part about the angelic voice; I’m already legally considered a freak so why add to that with hearing voices.

“What about you Bells?” Dean tried to shake Bella out of her funk of them not catching Jake.

“I remember Sam collapsing, and then I went out to try and find Jake and kill him, and then nothing.” She gave him a lopsided frown.

“Okay... we gotta get to Bobby's.” Dean let go of Bella and headed back to the other room to clean off the table.

“Wait, you went after Jake?” I grabbed Bella’s hand.

“I did... so did Bobby.” She gave me that skeptical look.

“Why would you do that? You know he was after you too.” My head spun at the different ways she could have been killed.

“I just saw you get stabbed... it was just rage Sam.” She tried to blow it off and shook free of my grip.

“It was still stupid, it got you killed to.”

“Look, I'm alive.” Her sigh was slightly angry. “Let's just get to Bobby's, okay?” and then she marched out the door behind Dean.

“Fine, but this conversation is far from over.” I grabbed the bag that Dean always forgot, usually full of my clothes, and walked out to the car.

**Dean POV**

When we got to Bobby’s I told the guys to hang back, it was going to be a shock to Bobby to see them alive, I had to talk to him and explain how this happened without telling him the particulars of _how_ I did it. But they didn’t give me enough time to explain…

“What in the Hell?” Bobby nearly tripped over his kitchen chair when they walked in.

“Hey Bobby.” They said like there was nothing wrong.

Bobby went for his flask and silver knife, also known as the Hunter Handshake.

“Kill the motor Bobby, it’s them, I checked.” I explained. Sam looked at me questioningly but I brushed him off.

“Dean… what’d ya do?” Bobby scrutinized me.

“Nothing Bobby!” Seriously, why does everyone have to guess correctly?

“People just don’t come back from the dead boy! You made a deal didn’t you? For them. How long did they give ya?” Bobby was in my face by this point, screaming and spitting at me.

“Bobby…” I didn’t want to hash this out with the three of them; frankly I didn’t want anyone to find out.

“How long?!” Bobby was livid.

Everyone was waiting for my answer; the silence was so heavy I felt like it would crush me. I sighed, best to get it over with now… “A year.” I couldn’t look at any of them.

“Damn it Dean!” Bobby’s voice wasn’t as angry as it was before, maybe grief was setting in.

“What?!” Sam took a step towards me.

“Sam not now!” I growled we had more problems to deal with right now than me selling my soul.

“No Dean, now!” Sam’s anger boiled over and he walked over to me. At least he was angry, I could deal with anger.

“You sold your soul?!” I heard Bella’s voice ring out uncertainty. That’s something I couldn’t deal with; I knew I had let her down. But she didn’t see Sam and me get stabbed to death did she?

“Yes okay… I did.” I sighed.

“Why would you do that?” Sam snapped.

“Don’t you ask me that… don’t you dare…. You and Bella were gone…” I couldn’t finish my sentence. It brought back too many fresh memories.

“And you should have let us stay dead Dean!” Sam’s voice was mixed with anger and disbelief. “What was it you said to me the first time I saved you?”

I remembered, ‘what’s dead should stay dead’ “I would have put a bullet in my head first.” I looked Sam in the eyes and hoped he could see how I just wanted him and Bella to be alive.

“So why the change?” Bella asked. She knew my code, don’t fight against your nature, family is thicker than blood, and if you see a monster, kill it. No alternative options.

“I couldn’t live with you both dead.” I replied. “I had to do something.” But that wasn’t the only reason. I didn’t want to be left alone. I mean I had Bobby but he wasn’t one to go out on hunts together. I didn’t want to fly solo with no back up, sure, I could go out and find another partner but I was so used to working with Sam and Bella They had gotten me through some tough scrapes over the years.

“You only got a year!” She yelled at me, tears leaking out.

“It’s a year more than I should have lived.” I muttered back.

“What are you talking about?” Sam was trying to control his anger and was failing completely.

“I should have died when we took out that Rawhead.” I replied. That was when they took me to that stupid faith healer whose wife had a reaper on a leash.

“No, you shouldn’t…” Sam disagreed.

“I’m not going to talk about this with the two of you.” I was tired of arguing, in fact, I was just plain tired of everything. I started up the stairs to go crash on one of Bobby’s spare beds.

“Yes you are!” Bella grabbed my arm. “How could you?” Her tears turned into full on sobs and she started crying into my shirtsleeve.

“Come on Bella, don’t cry.” I tried to console her but she jerked away from me and walked over to one of Bobby’s chairs and put her head in her hands. Sam walked over to her and put comforting hands on her shoulders.

Then he glared at me. “This is a new low, even for you.”

I ignored his words and walked over to Bella. “Izzy, please…” But she shook her head and continued to sob.

“We have to figure out how to get you out of it, like a counter deal or something.”

Oh Sammy, always trying to save everyone, but he couldn’t save me from this one. “You can’t. If I or either of you tries to get me out of it, you both drop dead.”

“There has to be a way… Bobby, do you have any other ideas?” Sam looked at Bobby desperately.

“I don’t think so…” Bobby began to think. “Damn it Dean… why did you do something so dumb?”

I sighed in irritation and looked at Bobby.

“Don’t you give me that look boy!” His face got redder. “I could throttle you!”

“And send me downstairs ahead of schedule?” I immediately regretted it as soon as the words left my mouth, I heard Bella’s breathing hitch.

“Don’t test me kid….” Bobby looked like he meant it.

“You’re gonna just have to live with it. My heartbeats are numbered… literally!” They were just going to have to deal with it.

“I’m not going to give up on you Dean.” Sam stood up and came over to me. He put his hand on my shoulder looking like the lead role in a chick flick movie.

“Me either.” Bella wiped her eyes that were red and puffy from crying so much.

“I don’t know why you’re bothering.” I pushed Sam’s hand away.  I knew that the two of them could move on after I died but I just couldn’t live without them.

“Stop being a jerk and let us help.” Sam punched me playfully. I bargained my soul away for his life and he’s trying to make a joke out of this.

“If I weasel out of this, you both die!” I smacked his hand away.

Sam rolled his eyes and sighed. “Fine.” My shoulders relaxed a little, I was glad that he had decided to drop it. “Do you have another case for us?” We looked at Bobby expectantly.

“I've been looking over-” He was cut off by a knock on the door.

We all turned to look at it. “Bobby, you expecting company?” I immediately went for my gun and trained it on the door.

“No…” Bobby warily went over to the door and opened it.

“Are you going to just stand there gawking at me or are you gonna let me in Singer?” I heard a female voice.

I couldn’t believe it, we thought she was dead.

“Ellen?!” Sam, Bella and I all said together. “What are you doing here?” I added.

“I needed to find someone.” She looked pretty shaken up. Bobby held out a chair for her and he sat down across from her and poured her a shot of holy water and pushed it towards her.

“Is this really necessary?” Ellen raised one eyebrow.

Bobby smirked at her innocently. “Just a belt of Holy Water, shouldn’t hurt.

Ellen rolled her eyes and threw the shot back. “Whiskey now, if you don’t mind.” Bobby smirked and poured her a glass.

“How did you get out of the Roadhouse?” I sat down in front of her. “It burned to the ground.”

“We ran out of pretzels, of all the damn things…” she chuckled bitterly. “I was gone about fifteen minutes… and it was in flames…”

“Is Jo…?” Bella started. “Is she with you?”

I waited for her answer with a pit in my stomach. If something had happened to Jo because of me…

“She’s been hunting on her own these past few months…” Ellen’s eyes narrowed as she downed her glass of whiskey. Then she looked at the empty glass. “She’s okay. She was terrified about me though, when she heard what happened to the Roadhouse…” She paused, looking up at the ceiling. “A lot of good hunters died in there.” then she started tearing up.

“Along with Ash and all the info he had about the demon….” Sam added bitterly.

“Ash mentioned a safe on the phone to me before the fire.” Ellen remembered. “There was a map in it.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled the map out.

“What does it mean?” I looked over it carefully. It was a map of Wyoming; Ash had marked five locations with red X’s.

“Hell if I know.” Ellen shrugged. “So what’s the deal with all the shouting earlier? I think you woke up half the town.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes as I could literally feel Sam and Bella glaring at me.

“What's goin' on?” Ellen watched the three of us suspiciously.

“Dean made a crossroads deal.” Sam snapped.

“What the hell for?! You idiot!” Ellen’s face became outraged as she leaned over the table and slapped me in the face.

“What the hell Ellen?!” I growled trying to ignore the ringing in my ears. “I've already gotten an ear full from these guys.”

“Don't you 'what the hell' me! What'd you sell your soul for?” Ellen’s words hit me almost as hard as her slap.

“Bella and I were both stabbed and killed 2 days ago…” Sam answered for me. “The demon rounded up the psychic kids and made us fight to the death.”

“I did it to save them, and they aren't very grateful for it....” I rubbed my face where Ellen hit me.

“Why do you think they'd be grateful? They come back from the dead to find out their brother's just signed his own death warrant!” Ellen looked like she wanted to hit me again.

“You should probably quit while you are behind boy.” Bobby told me, fighting a smile.

“Look, there's no way to out of it. It's done. This time next year I'll be dead.”

“A year?” Ellen slapped me again.

That one really hurt I rubbed my sore cheek. “Ow….” I growled.

“It's what you deserve.” She looked at me with those special mom eyes, the ones that say ‘I am so disappointed in you.’

I sighed, there was no way of getting around it but I tried again to change the subject. “Let's just concentrate on figuring out what Ash gave us, died to give us actually.” I got up and walked over to the refrigerator.

Sam went and took my place at the table and opened his laptop.

“Bobby have you been to any of these places before?” Bella gestured to the five locations Ash marked off.

“No but each of these points are locations for abandoned frontier churches.” He picked up a marker and started drawing on the map. “They lay out like this. They're connected in that pattern by abandoned iron railway tracks.”

We all stared as bobby drew out a five pointed star the points were each church.

“Is that -?” Ellen leaned in closer.

“A huge devil's trap?” I couldn’t believe it myself.

“That's why there have been no demons in Wyoming.” Sam stared at the map incredulously.

“What if it's not keeping something out, but keeping somethin' in?” I suggested. I mean that’s what we use normal devil’s traps for.

“Like what? What's so big that they had to make a gate that massive to contain it?” Bella crossed her arms and frowned.

“I don't know, but we gotta get there.” Bobby went downstairs to collect his gear.

“Yellow Eyes has his leader now.” I pointed grimly to a crypt in the centre of the devil's trap. “I think he's gonna unleash his army.”

“Jake....” Bella clenched her fists and glared at the map. The phrase ‘if looks could kill’ ran through my head.

“Yeah.” I looked at her. She was clearly looking at this from a revenge standpoint.

“You are not going to get anywhere near him.” Sam rolled up the map and put it in his duffle bag.

“Why not?!” She growled.

“You are too emotionally invested; it's messing up your head.” Sam replied calmly. At least I didn’t have to be the bad guy this time.

“I'm focused!” She glared at him. “I'm coming with you, that's final!”

“Bella, this thing has already killed you once; do you wanna go for round two?” I couldn’t stop the images that assaulted me, her lying on the ground in a pool of her own blood.

“If that's what it takes to kill the thing, then yes!”  Bella started shouting.

Ellen decided to step in. “Bella maybe the boys are right, it's too dangerous.”

Bella stared at her in amazement. “This is my fight too! It killed my mom, my dad and killed Sam and me both 2 days ago! Stop smothering me, all of you! I'll be okay!”

“Well, you heard her, might as well count me in too, nobody messes with the Roadhouse.” Ellen stood beside Bella, both with the same expressions and pose. It was kinda funny; Bella was like a mini me of Ellen.

“Plus, girls rule the world.” Bella grinned and they fist bumped.

“There's no way of talking you out of this is there?” That kid was too much like me to give up. It was sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad thing. Right now I couldn’t decide which was which.

“No, there isn't.”

I groaned internally.

We were packing the cars and discussing what to do next. Bobby confirmed that it was a devils trap made by Samuel Colt, yes that Samuel Colt. The lines that Bobby drew on the map were old railway tracks.

“I mean the railroad tracks are made out of iron. No demon can come in or out. And after all these years none of the lines are broken? I mean, it still works?” I asked.

“Defiantly.” Sam brought another bag out of Bobby’s house and heard Dean’s question.

“How do you know?” Bella asked as she took the bag from him.

“All those omens Bobby found. I mean the demons, they must be circling and they can’t get in.” Sam replied matter-of-factly. Bobby had been telling us about all kinds of omens hitting everywhere except for the Southern part of Wyoming where the trap is.

“Yeah, well… they’re trying.” Bobby frowned grimly.

“Why? What’s inside?” Ellen spoke up.

“That’s what I’ve been looking for. And, uh, there’s nothing except an old cowboy cemetery right in the middle.” I pulled up the pictures on Sam’s computer of the cemetery.

“What’s so important about a cemetery or… what’s Colt trying to protect?” Sam looked at the images, deep in thought.

“What if Colt wasn’t trying to keep the demons out? What if he was trying to keep something in?” I suggested.

“Could they do it, Bobby? Could they get inside?” Sam asked. I had a feeling I knew where this conversation was going.

“This thing’s so powerful; you’d practically need an A-bomb to destroy it. No way a full-blooded demon could get across.”

“I think I know someone who can.” Sam balled up his fists.

“Do you think that’s what the yellow eyed demon wants us for?” Bella gasped at the realization.

“Not ‘us’ just one of us.” Sam spit on the ground. “That’s why he took us to Cold Oak, that’s what all of this psychic crap was about. Come on we gotta go, who knows what’s at the centre of that trap.”

 


	24. The End

**Chapter 23: The End**

**Bella POV**

 

I sat in the back of the impala and tapped my knife against my leg impatiently. I couldn’t wait to get to Wyoming and carve Jake up into little pieces.

“Bella, you aren’t going to do anything to Jake…. You are going to be our backup.” Sam turned to me.

“Yeah, whatever….” I rolled my eyes and speed up my tapping.

“I still can’t get used to that mind link thing…” Dean commented as he sped down the highway.

The car was quiet then, we were getting prepared for this battle. The only conclusion we could come to was that the devil’s trap was where the yellow eyed demon’s army was, Sam finally told us about his bizarre dream that he had in Cold Oak. The further I researched the place I found that there was a large crypt in the middle of the cemetery, if I was a demon bent on destroying all of humanity I would have put my army there.

“So when Jake shows up you leave this to me okay?” Sam said to no one in particular.

“I got your back bro.” Dean nodded and smirked at Sam. That’s what I liked about my big brother, nothing really ruffled his feathers. Sam on the other hand….

“You can’t expect me to hang back Sam. This is my fight too.”

“Bella, not now.” Sam turned to stare out the window.

“No way! I’m still alive and in this family!” I was getting sick of them acting like I wasn’t there. “I’m going to kill Jake even if it kills me!”

“And then what if the demon shows up?” Sam spat back at me. “You couldn’t kill him the first time what makes you so sure you could do it now?”

“He was possessing Dad!” His words slapped me. “This time he’ll be in some other meat suit, it will be easier!”

“Just because it’s someone you’ve never met?” I could hear how irritated he was with me. “Bella he could be in a totally innocent person, are you ready to condemn an innocent man to death?”

I sat in the back fighting tears. My blade was still against my leg and it felt like I was going to bite through my lip at any second. I waited for a few minutes for the lump in my throat to clear before I tried speaking again but Sam beat me to it.

“Besides, I don’t want you getting hurt in the crossfire.” He tried to sound more concerned for my safety. “If anything happened to you how are Dean and I supposed to live with it?”

“If you two don’t shut up we are going to wake up the entire cemetery with all this noise…” Dean grumbled as the car pulled to a stop.

I looked around and it was dark as pitch outside, it was hard to make out anything but Dean swore this was the place. As we started getting our supplies out of the trunk the moon shone through the clouds illuminating the headstones as well as the fog surrounding them giving of eerie vibes. It was also getting colder so I reached into my duffle bag and pulled out an old flannel jacket of Dad’s. I had stolen it out of Dean’s bags, he saw me doing it but let me have it anyway. It was kinda like my security blanket. Dad was wearing this jacket when I met him at the coffee shop just after I had found out he was alive. I felt it was appropriate to wear it tonight. At daybreak, if all goes well, Jake and the yellow eyed demon would be nothing more than a memory and we could turn our backs on this black event in our lives and finally move on.

We made our way to the middle and found the crypt; it was made by Samuel alright. I spotted all kinds of warning and protective symbols. On the door was a small pentagram lock with a hole in the middle just big enough to a quarter. All that was left to do was lie in wait for our prey. Bobby, Ellen, Dean and I hid behind the crypt and Sam was waiting off to one side in the shadow of the building. It wasn’t long before we heard the thrashing of the brush and the heavy breathing of a young adult male. My muscles tensed… Jake… I thought bitterly.

Ellen put a restraining hand on my shoulder. I hadn’t realized until then but I was getting ready to jump out and spoil the whole plan. I threw her an apologetic glance as we watched him enter our line of sight.

Jake was looking down at the gun then at the hole and then back to the gun. _The gun’s the key Sam…_ I thought out, of course it would be, the key to killing the demon was also the key to releasing his army.

“Howdy Jake.” Sam appeared a few feet behind Jake and the four of us came out from behind the crypt, guns raised, or in my case knife, and had them all trained on Jake.

“Wait…” Jake looked at me and Sam and his eyes grew wide. “I killed you.”

“Yeah? Well next time, finish the job.”

“You can’t be alive…. You can’t be…” For the first time I saw a look of true fear in Jake.

“Okay, just take it real easy there, son.” Bobby tried to talk with Jake.

“And if I don’t?” Jake mouthed off to him.

“Wait and see.” Sam challenged. The look in my brother’s eyes was downright scary. It was like he was my brother but the eyes weren’t right, he wasn’t the carefree spirit I had met that first day, but the eyes of someone who was done with it all and ready for this all to be over with.

Jake turned back to Sam with a smirk. “What, you a tough guy all of a sudden? What are you gonna do – kill me?”

“It’s a thought.” Sam cocked his gun and had his finger resting on the trigger.

“You had your chance. You couldn’t.”

“I won’t make that mistake twice.”

Then Jake started laughing, there was something off about it, slightly deranged when you think about it. His laughter was the only sound apart from the sounds of nature that surrounded us. It was so different from the sounds around us but it kinda fit with the scene. A chill ran down my spine as Dean asked him what he was laughing at.

“Hey lady, do me a favor.” Jake turned to Ellen and smiled. “Point that gun at someone else. Bella for instance.”

I turned to see Ellen fighting to regain control of her body as it was turning to face me and the barrel of her shotgun was inches away from my face. I tried backing away but my back was pressed against the cold hard stone of the crypt, I was trapped.

“See that Ava girl was right.” Jake admired his handiwork. “Once you give in to it, there’s all sorts of new Jedi mind tricks you can learn.”

It was funny when Andy pulled the Obi one stuff on that old security guard that time but not so much when I was staring down the barrel of a shotgun. _Sam..._ I called out in desperation.

“Let them go.” Sam warned, his finger let off the trigger and lowered his gun slightly.

“Shoot him!” Ellen had tears streaming down her face, her voice was trembling.

“You’ll be mopping up skull before you get a shot off.” Jake threatened. “Everybody put your guns down. Except for you sweetheart.” I watched in horror as Sam, Dean, and Bobby obeyed him. “Thank you.” Jake looked down at the gun once more and moved through us and then a lot of things happened at once.

Jake started to put the colt in the slot, Bobby and Dean grabbed Ellen before she could shoot me, and I slashed my knife at Jake’s side and had just enough time to duck out of the way of Sam’s shots. He unloaded four shots into Jake’s back and he fell to the ground. Sam then ran over and stood over top of Jake and held the gun on him.

Jake was gasping for breath. “Please… don’t. Please…”

Sam narrowed his eyes and shot Jake three more times in the chest. Sam was gasping for air too; he lowered his gun and wiped some stray blood from his face. We all watched as two engravings on the crypt started spinning in different directions and then stopped.

“Oh no…” Bobby’s voice was filled with fear.

“Bobby what is it?” Ellen asked she still hadn’t come down from almost shooting me.

“It’s hell.” Bobby’s answer was hollow, like all the breath had been knocked out of him. Dean grabbed the Colt out of the crypt. “Take cover – now!” Bobby instructed.

I grabbed Sam and pulled him away from the door as it busted open. A huge black mass of thick fog started billowing swiftly out of the crypt and shot outward. The force of the mass was so intense that it literally made sound. The wobble was getting so loud that I was afraid it was going to shatter my ear drums.

“What the hell just happened!?” Dean yelled over the noise.

“That’s a devil’s gate! A damn door to hell!” Ellen shouted back. “Come on we gotta shut the gate!”

Dean checked the Colt for bullets, there was still one bullet left. “If the demon gave this to Jake… then maybe…”

We all went to go close the gate. Our progress could be explained like trying to put two similar sides of a magnet together. The force of the demons pouring out of hell was so strong that it was almost like a natural barrier. But we eventually made it over to the doors. Ellen and I made it to the left door and Bobby and Sam were at the right door all four of us were pushing as hard as we could. I heard Sam call out Dean’s name and I turned to see Dean being tossed like a rag doll into the air and he hit his head on a tombstone and yellow eyes was standing there, smiling at the two of us. Sam and I both let go of the doors and ran towards him.

“I’ll get to you two in a minute.” The demon smiled as he flung us into a tree. “But I’m proud of you – knew you had it in you.” He turned his attention back to Dean, who was struggling to get up. “Sit a spell.” The demon looked intently at Dean and he fell back to the ground. He tried to get up once more and realized that his legs weren’t cooperating.

“Dean!” I screamed I tried to get up too but I realized that there was an invisible force pinning me down.

“So, Dean… I got to thank you. You see, demons can’t resurrect people unless a deal is made. I know red tape – it’ll make you nuts. But thanks to you, Sammy’s back in rotation!” he laughed and appraised Sam once more, and then his gaze shifted to me. I held my breath thinking that he was going to snap my neck or something just to be rid of me but he turned back to Dean. “Now, I wasn’t counting on that, but I’m glad. I liked him better than Jake, anyhow. Tell me – have you ever heard the expression ‘if a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is’?”

“You call that deal good?” Dean managed to cough out. He was bleeding pretty severely from his temple but other than that he seemed fine.

The demon continued to ramble on “Well, it's a better shake than your dad ever got. And you never wondered why? I'm surprised at you. I mean...you saw what your brother just did to Jake, right? That was pretty cold, wasn't it?” he chuckled. “How certain are you that what you brought back, is 100% pure Sam and Bella? You of all people should know, that's what's dead, should stay dead. Anyway… thanks a bunch. I knew I kept you alive for some reason. Until now, anyway. I couldn't have done it without your pathetic, self-loathing, self-destructive desire to sacrifice yourself for your family.” As the demon cocked the Colt and pointed it at Dean, before I could scream out in protest, a white mist appeared and took a familiar shape. As it grabbed the demon and started wrestling him to the ground I recognized the dark brown hair, the imposing figure, the intense desire to carry out revenge. I watched as my father pushed the demon out of his body and into his vapour state. They started clashing; white mist against the black fog.

Dean took this opportunity to grab the gun away from the demon’s host, which was collapsed on the ground dead. Sam and I realized that we could get off of the ground and we ran over to Dean at the same time that the demon threw Dad to the ground and jumped back in his body.

He stood back up and realized then that Dean had the gun. Without a word Dean fired the last remaining bullet right in between the demon’s pale yellow eyes. The shock was plain on his face, he had been beaten by three ‘pathetic human’s’ and crumpled to the ground, dead.

Bobby and Ellen had gotten the gate shut and started running towards us. They stopped short of us when they spotted Dad.

“Daddy?” I spoke, my voice was horse.

He turned to smile at me, never opened his mouth to speak. And putting a hand on Dean’s shoulder, both of them were crying and after Sam gave him a nod, Dad stepped away from us and disappeared.

 

Dean looked down at the colt and really started sobbing, in relief and sadness. I tried to hold back the tears but was failing miserably. I let out a strangled cry as I turned into Sam and pulled his jacket around me. I felt his body shudder as I recognized his crying too. Bobby and Ellen hung back long enough to check the crypt again to make sure that it was going to stay shut and also to give the three of us some time.

Finally after two decades of searching and coming up empty handed we had accomplished what Dad had set out to do all those years ago. We had gotten our revenge; the scourge that had broken up our family was finally gone. It had made our father distant and overbearing but brought the three of us kids closer together than we had ever been. And in the end Dad got to see the life leave the demon’s yellow eyes. As I stared down at the lifeless body of the demon I felt relief so intense that my knees buckled and gave way underneath me. If it hadn’t been for Sam’s strong arms around me I would have fallen.

“Well, check that off the to-do list.” Dean grimaced as he evaluated the body.

“You did it.” Sam’s voice was full of relief as well smiling at me and Dean.

“I didn’t do it alone.” Dean reminded him.

We all thought for a few seconds about that. Could Dad really have come back just like that?

“Do you think Dad really…” Sam started. “do you think he really climbed outta Hell?”

“The door was open.” Dean frowned slightly. “If anyone’s stubborn enough to do it… it would be him.”

We said our goodbyes to the demon, Dean’s more colourful than the rest, and we all walked, or in mine and Dean’s case, limped back to the car. Sam swore to Dean that he would get Dean out of his deal, a sentiment that I shared with Sam.

“You’ve saved our lives over and over. I mean, you sacrifice everything for us. Don’t you think we’d do the same for you?” Sam tried to convince him. “You’re my big brother. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. And I don’t care what it takes, I’m gonna get you out of this. Guess I gotta save your ass for a change.”

“Sam’s right Dean, you’re a pain… but you’re my pain.” I smirked back at him.

Even though Yellow Eyes was becoming graveyard fertilizer right now, his army had still escaped from Hell; the battle for revenge was over, but the war had just begun.

We loaded up and headed out on the road looking for jobs sleeping in crappy motel rooms, eating crappy diner food and having the best times of our lives in that Chevy impala.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 


End file.
